Maunder and Dalton Sunspot Minima

In a recent interchange over at Joanne Nova’s always interesting blog, I’d said that the slow changes in the sun have little effect on temperature. Someone asked me, well, what about the cold temperatures during the Maunder and Dalton sunspot minima? And I thought … hey, what about them? I realized that like everyone else, up until now I’ve just accepted the idea of cold temperatures being a result of the solar minima as an article of faith … but I’d never actually looked at the data. And in any case, I thought, what temperature data would we have for the Maunder sunspot minimum, which lasted from 1645 to 1715? So … I went back to the original sources, which as always is a very interesting ride, and I learned a lot.

It turns out that this strong association of sunspot minima and temperature is a fairly recent development. Modern interest in the Maunder sunspot minimum was sparked by John Eddy’s 1976 publication of a paper in Science entitled “The Maunder Minimum”. In that paper, Eddy briefly discusses the question of the relationship between the Maunder sunspot minimum and the global temperature, viz:

The coincidence of Maunder’s “prolonged solar minimum” with the coldest excursion of the “Little Ice Age” has been noted by many who have looked at the possible relations between the sun and terrestrial climate (73). A lasting tree-ring anomaly which spans the same period has been cited as evidence of a concurrent drought in the American Southwest (68, 74). There is also a nearly 1 : 1 agreement in sense and time between major excursions in world temperature (as best they are known) and the earlier excursions of the envelope of solar behavior in the record of 14C, particularly when a 14C lag time is allowed for: the Sporer Minimum of the 16th century is coincident with the other severe temperature dip of the Little Ice Age, and the Grand Maximum coincides with the “medieval Climatic Optimum” of the 11th through 13th centuries (75, 76). These coincidences suggest a possible relationship between the overall envelope of the curve of solar activity and terrestrial climate in which the 11-year solar cycle may be effectively filtered out or simply unrelated to the problem. The mechanism of this solar effect on climate may be the simple one of ponderous long-term changes of small amount in the total radiative output of the sun, or solar constant. These long-term drifts in solar radiation may modulate the envelope of the solar cycle through the solar dynamo to produce the observed long-term trends in solar activity. The continuity, or phase, of the 11-year cycle would be independent of this slow, radiative change, but the amplitude could be controlled by it. According to this interpretation, the cyclic coming and going of sunspots would have little effect on the output of solar radiation, or presumably on weather, but the long-term envelope of sunspot activity carries the indelible signature of slow changes in solar radiation which surely affect our climate (77). [see paper for references]

Now, I have to confess, that all struck me as very weak, with more “suggest” and “maybe” and “could” than I prefer in my science. So I thought I’d look to see where he was getting the temperature data to support his claims. It turns out that he was basing his opinion of the temperature during the Maunder minimum on a climate index from H. H. Lamb, viz:

The Little Ice Age lasted roughly from 1430 to 1850 … if we take H. H. Lamb’s index of Paris London Winter Severity as a global indicator.

After some searching, I found the noted climatologist H. H. Lamb’s England winter severity index in his 1965 paper The Early Medieval Warm Epoch And Its Sequel. He doesn’t give the values for his index, but I digitized his graph. Here are Lamb’s results, showing the winter severity in England. Lower values mean more severe winters.

So let me pose you a small puzzle. Knowing that Eddy is basing his claims about a cold Maunder minimum on Lamb’s winter severity index … where in Lamb’s winter severity index would you say that we would find the Maunder and Dalton minima? …

Figure 1. H.H. Lamb’s index of winter severity in England.

As you can see, there is a reasonable variety in the severity of the winters in England. However, it is not immediately apparent just where in there we might find the Maunder and Dalton minima, although there are several clear possibilities. So to move the discussion along, let me reveal where they are:

Figure 2. As in Figure 1, but with the dates of the Maunder and Dalton minima added.

As we might expect, the Maunder minimum is the coldest part of the record. The Dalton minimum is also cold, but not as cold as the Maunder minimum, again as we’d expect. Both of them have warmer periods both before and after the minima, illustrating the effect of the sun on the … on the … hang on … hmmm, that doesn’t look right … let me check my figures …

…

…

…

… uh-oh

…

…

Well, imagine that. I forgot to divide by the square root of minus one, so I got the dates kinda mixed up, and I put both the Maunder and the Dalton 220 years early … here are the actual dates of the solar minima shown in Lamb’s winter severity index.

Figure 3. H.H. Lamb’s England winter severity index, 1100-1950, overlaid with the actual dates of the four solar minima ascribed to that period. Values are decadal averages 1100-1110,1110-1120, etc., and are centered on the decade.

As you can see …

• The cooling during the Wolf minimum is indistinguishable from the two immediately previous episodes of cooling, none of which get much below the overall average.

• The temperature during the Sporer minimum is warmer than the temperature before and after the minimum.

• The coldest and second coldest decades in the record were not associated with solar minima.

• The fastest cooling in the record, from the 1425 decade to the 1435 decade, also was not associated with a solar minimum.

• Contrary to what we’d expect, the Maunder minimum warmed from start to finish.

• The Dalton minimum is unremarkable in any manner other than being warmer than the decade before the start and the decade after the end of the minimum. Oh, and like the Maunder, it also warmed steadily over the period of the minimum.

Urk … that’s what Eddy based his claims on. Not impressed.

Let me digress with a bit of history. I began this solar expedition over a decade ago thinking, along with many others, that as they say, “It’s the sun, stupid!”. I, and many other people, took it as an unquestioned and unexamined “fact” that the small variations of the sun, both the 11-year cycles and the solar minima, had a discernible effect on the temperature. As a result, I spent endless hours investigating things like the barycentric movement of the sun. I went so far as to write a spreadsheet to calculate the barycentric movement for any period of history, and compared those results to the temperatures.

But the more I looked, the less I found. So I started looking at the various papers claiming that the 11-year cycle was visible in various climate datasets … still nothing. To date, I’ve written up and posted the results of my search for the 11-year cycle in global sea levels, the Central England Temperature record, sea surface temperatures, tropospheric temperatures, global surface temperatures, rainfall amounts, the Armagh Observatory temperatures, the Armagh Observatory daily temperature ranges, river flows, individual tidal stations, solar wind, the 10Beryllium ice core data, and some others I’ve forgotten … nothing.

Not one of them shows any significant 11-year cycle.

And now, for the first time I’m looking at temperature effects of the solar minima … and I’m in the same boat. The more I look, the less I find.

However, we do have some actual observational evidence for the time period of the most recent of the minima, the Dalton minimum, because the Berkeley Earth temperature record goes back to 1750. And while the record is fragmentary and based on a small number of stations, it’s the best we have, and it is likely quite good for comparison of nearby decades. In any case, here are those results:

Figure 4. The Berkeley Earth land temperature anomaly data, along with the Dalton minimum.

Once again, the data absolutely doesn’t support the idea of the sun ruling the temperature. IF the sun indeed caused the variations during the Dalton minimum, it first made the temperature rise, then fall, then rise again to where it started … sorry, but that doesn’t look anything like what we’d expect. For example, if the low spot around 1815 is caused by low solar input, then why does the temperature start rising then, and rise steadily until the end of the Dalton minimum, while the solar input is not rising at all?

So once again, I can’t find evidence to support the theory. As a result, I will throw the question open to the adherents of the theory … what, in your estimation, is the one best piece of temperature evidence that shows that the solar minima cause cold spells?

Now, a few caveats. First, I want to enlist your knowledge and wisdom in the search, so please just give me your one best shot. I’m not interested in someone dumping the results of a google search for “Maunder” on my desk. I want to know what YOU think is the very best evidence that solar minima cause global cooling.

Next, don’t bother saying “the Little Ice Age is the best evidence”. Yes, the Maunder occurred during the Little Ice Age (LIA). But the Lamb index says that the temperature warmed from the start of the Maunder until the end. Neither the Maunder’s location, which was quite late in the LIA, nor the warming Lamb shows from the start to the end of the Maunder, support the idea that the sun caused the LIA cooling.

Next, please don’t fall into the trap of considering climate model results as data. The problem, as I have shown in a number of posts, is that the global temperature outputs of the modern crop of climate models are nothing but linear transforms of their inputs. And since the models include solar variations among their inputs, those solar variations will indeed appear in the model outputs. If you think that is evidence for solar forcing of temperature … well, this is not the thread for you. So no climate model results, please.

So … what do you think is the one very best piece of evidence that the solar minima actually do affect the temperature, the evidence that you’d stand behind and defend?

My regards to you all,

w.

[UPDATE] In the comments, someone said that the Central England Temperature record shows the cooling effects of the solar minima … I’m not finding it:

As you can see, there is very little support for the “solar minima cause cool temperatures” hypothesis in the CET. Just as in the Lamb winter severity data and the Berkeley Earth data, during both the Dalton and Maunder minima we see the temperature WARMING for the last part of the solar minimum. IF the cause is in fact a solar slump … then why would the earth warm up while the sun is still slumping? And in particular, in the CET the Dalton minimum ends up quite a bit warmer than it started … how on earth does this support the “solar slump” claim, that at the end of the Dalton minimum it’s warmer than at the start?

The Usual Request: I know this almost never happens, but if you disagree with something that I or someone else has said, please have the common courtesy to QUOTE THEIR EXACT WORDS that you disagree with. This prevents much confusion and misunderstanding.

1,018 thoughts on “Maunder and Dalton Sunspot Minima”

Well, I would say that it is an incorrect analysis to compare temp with any single forcing. There are multiple forcings for Average Global Temp and to make a logical comparison of Temp vs the Solar Intensity you have to adjust the temp graph to EXclude other temp forcings like atypical volcanic activity, El Nino/La Nina, etc.

Willis
May I ask whether or not you checked the UV emissions during sunspot cycles and the lack thereof during the Maunder Minimum? I though, and I may well be wrong here, but UV output has effect on winter weather and by extension the lack of UV activity during the Maunder Minimum may well have some effect during this particular downturn during that period.

You’re confusing cause and effect. The solar sunspot cycles are an effect from a deeper Solar condition — the issue isn’t insolation (or lack of) from sunspots, but from the whole solar activity. The AP magnetic index is an example — a change in the big picture, and the sunspots are just a symptom.

This analysis is pretty much meaningless relying as it does on one set of data about one location. To quote from an article by Burnel (http://enthusiasmscepticismscience.wordpress.com/2013/09/22/hubert-lamb-and-the-assimilation-of-legendary-ancient-russian-winters/) , “What Lamb’s winter severity map makes most evident is that even across a short arc of the globe, while there is evident a generalized pattern of change through time, this pattern can be experienced quite differently at different points along the arc. Some places experience the change more sharply than others. Sometimes the change is so much out of phase that the trend at the same time in different places is reversed.” For an analysis of the impact of solar variation on climate change on a global scale is needed.

Six chronologies based on the growth of Scots pine from the inland of northern Fennoscandia were built to separately enhance low, medium, and higher frequencies in growth variability in 1000–2002. Several periodicities of growth were found in common in these data. Five of the low-frequency series have a significant oscillatory mode at 200–250 years of cycle length. Most series also have strong multidecadal scale variability and significant peaks at 33, 67, or 83–125 years. Reconstruction models for mean July and June–August as well as three longer period temperatures were built and compared using stringent verification statistics. We describe main differences in model performance (R^2 = 0.53–0.62) between individual proxies as well as their various averages depending on provenance and proxy type, length of target period, and frequency range. A separate medium-frequency chronology (a proxy for June–August temperatures) is presented, which is closely similar in amplitude and duration to the last two cycles of the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO). The good synchrony between these two series is only hampered by a 10-year difference in timing. Recognizing a strong medium-frequency component in Fennoscandian climate proxies helps to explain part of the uncertainties in their 20th century trends.http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jcli/2014/578761/abs/

The 2009-2010 period was the quietest solar period of our lifetimes and it coincided with record high latitude blocking patterns (cold air distribution) in both hemispheres. What fascinated me was the very active series of stratospheric warmings that occurred during this solar minimum. These are things we couldn’t really measure during the prior minima, so I suspect we’ll learn a whole lot in the years ahead!

Check Figs 8 and 9 athttp://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2013/10/commonsense-climate-science-and.html
Here are some quotes.
“Furthermore Fig 8 shows that the cosmic ray intensity time series derived from the 10Be data is the most useful proxy relating solar activity to temperature and climate. – see Fig 3 CD from Steinhilberhttp://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/03/30/1118965109.full.pdf
NOTE !! the connection between solar “activity” and climate is poorly understood and highly controversial. Solar ” activity” encompasses changes in solar magnetic field strength, IMF, CRF, TSI ,EUV,solar wind density and velocity, CMEs, proton events etc. The idea of using the neutron count as a useful proxy for changing solar activity and temperature forecasting is agnostic as to the physical mechanisms involved……..
The trends in the neutron count over the last few solar cycles strengthens the forecast of coming cooling made from projecting the PDO and Millennial cycle temperature trends The decline in solar activity from 1990 (Cycle 22) to the present (Cycle 24) is obvious……..
Fig9
It has been estimated that there is about a 12 year lag between the cosmic ray flux and the temperature data. see Fig3 in Usoskin et alhttp://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2005ESASP.560…19U.
With that in mind it is reasonable to correlate the cycle 22 low in the neutron count (high solar activity and SSN) with the peak in the SST trend in about 2003 and project forward the possible general temperature decline in the coming decades in step with the decline in solar activity in cycles 23 and 24.
In earlier posts on this site http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com at 4/02/13 and 1/22/13
I have combined the PDO, ,Millennial cycle and neutron trends to estimate the timing and extent of the coming cooling in both the Northern Hemisphere and Globally.”

Interesting work , Willis – thanks for compiling that , as well as the other recent solar correlation posts.

There is an obvious next question this brings to my mind: What exactly has driven these shorter period changes in climate (by shorter, I mean sub-Milankovich scale cycles) ? It certainly wasn’t coal fired power plants and SUVs. It is the most fundamental question and one the CAGWers have no answer for.

I will say that if the skeptic crowd could develop a compelling theory / model of these past changes, it could potentially be possible to unravel the model temperature signal in terms of an natural signal & anthropogenic signal (if any).

If done with proper scientific rigor, it could be the final nail in the CAGW coffin.

“The 2009-2010 period was the quietest solar period of our lifetimes and it coincided with record high latitude blocking patterns (cold air distribution) in both hemispheres. What fascinated me was the very active series of stratospheric warmings that occurred during this solar minimum.”

———————

And of course the blocking can lead to extreme cold over Europe & eastern NA.

From the Eddy paper:

“The coincidence of Maunder’s “prolonged solar minimum” with the coldest excursion of the “Little Ice Age” has been noted by many who have looked at the possible relations between the sun and terrestrial climate (73). A lasting tree-ring anomaly which spans the same period has been cited as evidence of a concurrent drought in the American Southwest (68, 74). ”

Drought in the SW is also consistent with persistent blocking – just like we saw this winter.

But is there any correlation between this high latitude blocking & solar activity? We know there is a correlation / causation from polar stratospheric warming events but do those have any relationship to solar activity? Hard to say from the data presented here – temp records would all depend on where blocking sets up (and if the data are from the cold side or warm side of the block).

CET temperature data clearly show the 1659 to 1715 partial Maunder Minimum period statistically significantly colder than the following interval 1716 to 1789, with the shorter Dalton Minimum, 1790 to 1830, less so, but still cooler. It all being the LIA, there are some unusually cold years in the warmer mid-18th century period as well.

Since it is clearly seen the sunspot cycle can lead PDO and AMO, and they go on to influence global temperatures, it is obvious the sunspot cycle influences global temperatures. There are the graphs, it must be true.

…

Of course, as I said, that’s just having fun with graphs. Although I would like to know the real reasons the graphs can line up so much, mainly as to why PDO and AMO “beats” line up as they do with the sunspot cycles, switching who’s first between cooling and warming phases.

the decline of the total solar irradiance ( a product of the two century bi-cenntenial solar component) gives indisputable evidence that the earth is heading for a new little ice age.(see Abdussamatov and Piers Corbyn)

A plausible mechanism might be a slightly lower irradiation, including lower UV, effects directly the amount of H2O in the atmosphere in the tropics. I assume H2O is a greenhouse gas although it,s not mentioned in the consensus literature. The result is a decline in temperature very small but in enthalpy more pronounced due to the latent heat of the water vapour. This cascades in the higher latitudes and subsequently lower temperatures. As soon as this process progresses the temperature especially at the higher latitudes accelerates to drop further. Maybe changes in weatherpattern during this process
might have influence as well.

Several years ago I looked at volcanic indices and there were strange changes in the classes/frequencies of volcanic activity during the maunder (iirc) minimum. There are many potential directionality/cause/effect possibilities (did the effects of volcanic activity change the visibility of sunspots?). I don’t remember what I did and the hard-drive I did it on was fried.

There are at least 3 climate drivers: sun, natural variation beyond solar (e.g the apparent multidecadal Arctic ice cycles probably driven by ocean circulation and which affects albedo and thermohaline circulation), GHG. Untangling the mix is important, as these may operate on different time scales with different leverage, and with varying rates of feedbacks both positive and negative as they interact. After all, something was forcing change before CO2, and it probably hasn’t gone away.

As for the sun as one of the things in the mix, read Hoyt and Schatten, The role of the sun in climate change, Oxford University Press, 1997 (279 pp.) See also Hoyt, variation in sunspot structure and climate, Climate Change 2: 79-92 (1979). As for possible coupling mechanisms, see Schuurmans, Tropospheric Effects of Variable Solar Activity, Solar Physics 74: 417-419 (1981). Guess what: delta TSI, delta UV, delta heliosphere/cosmic rays, back in 1981.
Die Kalte Sonne is a modern read, page 69 being interesting. Now available in English as The Neglected Sun. Overstates the sun part, so just as wrong as the IPCC saying it is all about GHG. But more information to noodle on if one is so inclined.

We combined a new 10Be record from Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica, comprising more than 1,800 data points with several other already existing radionuclide records (14C from tree rings and 10Be analyzed in polar ice cores of Greenland and Antarctica) covering the Holocene. Using principal component analysis, we separated the common radionuclide production signal due to solar and geomagnetic activity from the system effects signal due to the different transport and deposition processes. The common signal represents a low-noise record of cosmic radiation, particularly for high frequencies, compared to earlier reconstructions, which are only based on single radionuclide records. On the basis of this record, we then derived a reconstruction of total solar irradiance for the Holocene, which overall agrees well with two existing records but shows less high-frequency noise. A comparison of the derived solar activity with a record of Asian climate derived from δ18O in a Chinese stalagmite reveals a significant correlation. The correlation is remarkable because the Earth’s climate has not been driven by the Sun alone. Other forcings like volcanoes, greenhouse gas concentrations, and internal variability also have played an important role. To quantify the solar influence on the Earth’s climate and to distinguish between the different forcings, climate model simulations are required for the Holocene, employing the new dataset of total solar irradiance. The dataset will be available online at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration paleo server (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/forcing.html).

TSI is everything in the electromagnetic spectrum so use it for solar output. Just before 1979 is the start of this TSI dataset, using measurements. There are various TSI “reconstructions” that go back further. However, they get based on the SSN records which go way back before 1979, so comparisons aren’t helpful, you’ll be comparing SSN to a product of SSN.

Kirkby’s 2008 survey paper cites a bunch of stuff. One study he highlights is Mangini et al. 2005, “Reconstruction of temperature in the Central Alps during the past 2000 yr from a δ18O stalagmite record.” Excerpt from Mangini:

“… a high correlation between δ18O in SPA 12 and D14C (r =0.61). The maxima of δ18O coincide with solar minima (Dalton, Maunder, Sporer, Wolf, as well as with minima at around AD 700, 500 and 300). This correlation indicates that the variability of δ18O is driven by solar changes, in agreement with previous results on Holocene stalagmites from Oman, and from Central Germany.”

If you average the winter severity index over, say, a century-sized interval and then plot that average against its center point, I bet the coincidence in time becomes more remarkable. (So, for example, the “smoothed” severity index for 1650 would be the average from 1600 to 1700, the smoothed index for 1651 would be the average from 1601 to 1701, and so on). Granted, there are isolated up spikes near and inside the colored bars, but they are isolated — and the century-long averaging will tend to point this out.

Also, as a bit of a quibble, how severe was a dry — that is, little snow — but very cold winter recorded as being? If the amount of snow made more of an impression back then, since there were few or no thermometers, it’s quite possible that the winter severity index, like tree rings, records a combined precipitation and temperature impression of the climate.

Willis,
You’ve shown that the Lamb winter severity index doesn’t make a very good match with solar minima, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the solar correlation with climate is wrong—it might as well mean that the Lamb index isn’t a good measure of what climate was doing during the Maunder. So I took a look at the CET, extended back to 1538 by Tony Brown. What I see is a temperature maximum at 1650 dropping continuously to a low at 1700-1710. It’s as good (or better) a match as one could expect.

Both 10Be and δ14C show significant maximums during the Maunder, as well as for the Sporer, Dalton, and the 1880-1915 cool period.

The CET during the Dalton shows low temps during the entire interval, (extending beyond the Dalton limits). Like the Maunder it also shows significant 10Be and δ14C maximums.

The consistent relationship between solar minima, temperature, 10Be, and δ14C maxima would seem to indicate that it’s more than just coincidence. What I make of this is that the sun is driving climate, but not at 11-yr intervals or any other cyclic interval. It seems to be ongoing, but somewhat irregular and not likely to show up in any kind of regular cycle analysis. What is especially interesting are the 10Be, and δ14C maxima that match the solar minima and temperature records, suggesting an increase in cosmic radiation during the colder periods. This would lend credence to the Svensmark hypothesis.

I doubt that you will find any kind of regular, cyclic repetition in these data, but that doesn’t mean that the sun isn’t driving the climate.
Don

…While total solar irradiance changes by 0.1 percent, the change in the intensity of ultraviolet light varies by much larger amounts, scientists have discovered. Research shows such variations in the Sun’s emissions can affect the ozone layer and the way energy moves both vertically and horizontally through the atmosphere….

So why not do it simple Willis. On the following graph there is a 11 year mean on both HadCRUT4 and TSI from 1850 until today. There seem to be an astonishing relation between the sun’s irradiance and the global temperature. But something seem to happen in the 1980s….

Although it wasn’t called the little ice age until the 1930’s, the effect had been known for centuries before that. I think it is a mistake to attribute it to eddy or lamb. Numerous writers have referenced it in past centuries. Charles dickens noticed the effect having been born during the very cold period at the start of the 19th century and lived to see some very warm periods.

Here are the CET figures for each season from 1659. Cet was thought by many scientists including lamb, Hulme and the dutch meteorological service to be a reasonable proxy for at least the northern hemisphere

In 2011 I wrote this article which extended cet to 1538. In it i Compared the temperature reconstructions of both Hubert lamb and Michael Mann.

I am currently extending it further to 1086 .There are numerous references to the cold and warm periods made over many hundreds of years. The little ice age is much more episodic than is generally believed. The period from 1500 to 1550 looks likely to be at least as warm as today. The 1730’s were only fractionally cooler. this period convinced Phil jones tha natural variability was much greater than he had previously believed.

Some of the sunspot minima match up well with colder temperatures,others do not. I remain unconvinced but it’s certainly a better match that co2 .Almost certainly the jet stream shifted as did the direction of winds. We had long periods of blocking highs and the weather during the cold periods and the transition in the 1200’s was often very extreme,

I have been coming to the conclusion that while the sun is the engine that drives our earths climate that it’s fluctuations are not enough to account for the long term climate changes. It is clear that some major factors even out the small variations and likely the biggest is the sea acting as that regulator that keeps climate stable. By the same token it is clearly arrogance that claims that humans can do what the sun isn’t doing and drive massive changes in the climate. Clearly as with the sun the changes will be small.

It is also clear that we need a lot more good solid research to have a handle on how climate really functions.

I agree that the sun certainly has an impact and arguably the period around 1650 to 1700 displays a possible sun spot relationship although other things might also have had an effect.

I think lamb is wrong to attribute the start of the little ice age to 1500AD and we are not helping our understanding of that period by believing the period from say 1300 to 1850 or so to be one
Long deep freeze. The lia had numerous very warm periods and the extremely cold periods were generally fairly short lived although they occurred fairly often.

Sun spots? Long periods of no sunshine? Long periods of extended sunshine? Jet streams? At present we don’t know the causes of the loa, but whilst we have this intriguing period when temperatures were much warmer than today and much cooler than today, with the biggest hockey stick occurring in the period 1690 to 1740, it is certain that natural variability is much greater than mann’s hockey stick would have us believe.

A simple regression model of the TSI averaged over the previous 11 years as the single and only independent variable can predict the temperature with an r-squared of 0.61 Used to predict the past 15 years or so from data it has not seen makes predictions that are more skillful than any GCM model. Its really all that simple. It works. ‘Nuff said. Perhaps we will all understand all the things that go into making it work, but for that, we will have to stop the grantsmanship of the CAGW crowd and fund on merit.

Teddi says:
June 23, 2014 at 1:26 pm
“Willis – turn off the Sun and then check the temperature. Anyone who assumes the Sun is not the main driver is “over-analysing” the simple reality that without the Sun we might as well be Neptune.”

The argument is whether small CHANGES in the Sun’s output match up with CHANGES in Earth’s climate.

Ive seen proxies. Ive seen years cherry picked from one data series ( adjusted data no less )

But so far nobody has answered Willis’ SPECIFIC question

“what, in your estimation, is the one best piece of temperature evidence that shows that the solar minima cause cold spells?”

To do this you have to

1. Identify the precise DATES of the minimum you wish to argue for
2. Identify TEMPERATURE evidence.
3. Show that the solar minimum causes the temperature to cool, that entails ruling out other causes.

See how #3 works? when we try to attribute warming to C02 increasing, folks demand that other causes be ruled out. hence, showing the solar min causes cooling you have to show that it couldnt be something else.

Here is another thing.

If you point to a purely local record ( like CET) then you’ve havent made the case. Imagine I tried to show that C02 caused warming by only pointing to warming in canada. Why everyone would scream and say that wasnt global warming. In other words, CET cooling shows only CET cooling, not global cooling.

And here is another thing.

If you have ever blasted the use of proxies, then guess what?

Personally I think the painting of washington crossing the delaware is the best evidence some have.

Another way to look at this is to start with some basics.

There are a few estimates of delta TSI from maunder to today.. they range from a a few tenths
of a watt to something over 1 watt. ( recall peak to trough is 1.3watts and the mininum is an extended trough )

Lets call it 1 watt for simplicity. the no feedback effect of decreasing input by 1 watt is around
.4C

Think you can find a .4C difference giving the accuracy of the records at that time?

Look at berkeley earth error bars in 1800.

Put another way, if you argue for something greater than .4C then you are implicity accepting positive feedbacks.

Thanks Willis, really, your point is well taken as in that there actually was a cooling period. So what do you conclude caused the subsequent warming and cooling? Are you in disagreement with the IPCC? The IPCC chart comparing co2 and temperature is very clear, there was no increase or decrease in co2 during those time periods, and as result no change in the temperature either. “Modern interest in the Maunder sunspot minimum was sparked by John Eddy’s 1976 publication of a paper in Science entitled “The Maunder Minimum”. ” I can very clearly remember it being a topic of conversation way (at least 20 years) before 1976 particularly among ham radio operators, who, some of them happened to be scientists also.
Next decade or two will be very interesting don’t you think?

CET temperature data clearly show the 1659 to 1715 partial Maunder Minimum period statistically significantly colder than the following interval 1716 to 1789, with the shorter Dalton Minimum, 1790 to 1830, less so, but still cooler. It all being the LIA, there are some unusually cold years in the warmer mid-18th century period as well

Thanks, sturgis. However, since there is an overall trend in the data, finding that one period is cooler than the succeeding period is not evidence of anything but a trend, and that situation is quite common in the record. In any case, here’s the annual CET data:

As you can see, there is very little support for the “solar minima cause cool temperatures” hypothesis in the CET. Just as in the Lamb winter severity data and the Berkeley Earth data, during both the Dalton and Maunder minima we see the temperature WARMING for the last half of the solar minimum. If the cause is in fact a solar slump … then why would it warm while the sun is still slumping? And in particular, in the CET the Dalton minimum ends up quite a bit warmer than it started … how on earth does this support the “solar slump” claim, that at the end of the Dalton minimum it’s warmer than at the start?

So I fear that I’m not seeing the evidence that you claim is there.

Best regards, and thanks for pointing to the CET, I’ll add this as an update to the main post.

Thanks Willis, very interesting stuff as always. Perhaps an evaporation and condensation cycle of any substance will tend to keep a planets temperature regulated around a certain temperature. Once the cycle is broken there will of course be a substantial shift in surface temp. So many possibilities, so little data. If you ever stop posting I will be quite put out. ;)
—————————————————–
vukcevic says:
June 23, 2014 at 1:30 pm

[snip – no, we aren’t going there, and I’m not going to have you overrun another thread with your link bombing. Plate tectonics don’t have anything to do with this discussion -Anthony]
—————————————————–
Snip me if need be but I am quite interested in the effects of water or land at the poles, as well as circum-global currents or lack there of on our global climate. Another post perhaps!

Willis – turn off the Sun and then check the temperature. Anyone who assumes the Sun is not the main driver is “over-analysing” the simple reality that without the Sun we might as well be Neptune.

Teddi, here’s what I actually said:

In a recent interchange over at Joanne Nova’s always interesting blog, I’d said that the slow changes in the sun have little effect on temperature.

I did not say that if you turn off the sun it will not cool down … so you are attacking a straw man. Do you see why I ask people like yourself to QUOTE MY WORDS? It is to avoid exactly this kind of confusion and misunderstanding.

There are at least 3 climate drivers: sun, natural variation beyond solar (e.g the apparent multidecadal Arctic ice cycles probably driven by ocean circulation and which affects albedo and thermohaline circulation), GHG. Untangling the mix is important, as these may operate on different time scales with different leverage, and with varying rates of feedbacks both positive and negative as they interact. After all, something was forcing change before CO2, and it probably hasn’t gone away.

As for the sun as one of the things in the mix, read Hoyt and Schatten, The role of the sun in climate change, Oxford University Press, 1997 (279 pp.) See also Hoyt, variation in sunspot structure and climate, Climate Change 2: 79-92 (1979). As for possible coupling mechanisms, see Schuurmans, Tropospheric Effects of Variable Solar Activity, Solar Physics 74: 417-419 (1981). Guess what: delta TSI, delta UV, delta heliosphere/cosmic rays, back in 1981.
Die Kalte Sonne is a modern read, page 69 being interesting. Now available in English as The Neglected Sun. Overstates the sun part, so just as wrong as the IPCC saying it is all about GHG. But more information to noodle on if one is so inclined.

Thanks, Rud, good to hear from you. Sounds like a long way of saying that there’s no evidence that you’re willing to stand behind … but if that’s not the case, then please present the evidence. AS I SPECIFICALLY SAID, I’m not interested in the slightest in a dump of a bunch of papers on my desk as you’ve just done. Pick one that you will stand behind, and show us not the paper but the EVIDENCE that it is cooler during solar minima. I’m totally uninterested in theory at this point, let’s see your evidence that an effect actually exists before you start trying to explain why.

We seem to be looking for a single cause, one that has a similar 11-yr cycle. What if it (11) is more a harmonic/beat frequency from contributory multiple causes? Or as mentioned, a function of something more subtle like what causes the sunspots to begin with? Sunspots are a result of something, right? While we cannot correlate very well with sunspots, perhaps there is something in the root cause of sunspots that correlates. No clues here, just asking.

Of course, looking for multiple related causes could be a lifetime grant…..

That T in CET forms a trough at the SSN (as previously measured) low, then, as you note, climbs later in the low sunspot period, supports the solar activity correlation with T, far from arguing against it. T descends into the minima, then climbs out of them, with high correlation to the numbers. You seem to suppose that SSN is constant throughout the decades of minima, as identified. Nothing could be further from the case. The minima are intervals of lower than usual SSN which end when the numbers return to average, but their depths of lowest number coincide with the lowest T observations.

Look at the freakin’ graph … do you see the “high cosmic ray flux” around 1050? Care to point out the “cold temperature” associated with that? And in any case, with five totally different temperature datasets, saying something is “associated with” cold temperatures is a joke.

Next, according to Kirby (as well as the other datasets I’ve looked at) the earth warmed for the latter half of both the Maunder and the Dalton minima … what is Kirby’s (or your) explanation for that?

Finally, it appears that that the proxy data that they are using is Mann 2008 … see my post on that POS called “Kill It With Fire” … it’s worse than useless, it’s a misleading and pathetic joke.

And since that misleading proxy data seems to be what Kirby is relying on the most … well, you can do the math.

ABSTRACT: Here we presented a high-resolution 5350-year pollen record from a maar annually laminated lake in East Asia (EA). Pollen record reflected the dynamics of vertical vegetation zones and temperature change. Spectral analysis on pollen percentages/concentrations of Pinus and Quercus, and a temperature proxy, revealed ,500-year quasi-periodic cold-warm fluctuations during the past 5350 years. This 500-year cyclic climate change occurred in EA during the mid-late Holocene and even the last 150 years dominated by anthropogenic forcing. It was almost in phase with a ,500-year periodic change in solar activity and Greenland temperature change, suggesting that ,500-year small variations in solar output played a prominent ole in the mid-late Holocene climate dynamics in EA, linked to high latitude climate system. Its last warm phase might terminate in the next several decades to enter another,250-year cool phase, and thus this future centennial cyclic temperature minimum could partially slow down man-made global warming.
Scientific Reports 01/2014; 4:3611.

Forget about the modeled mechanism if you want, but the lag is well supported:

ABSTRACT: Variability in solar irradiance has been connected to changes in surface climate in the North Atlantic through both observational and climate modelling studies which suggest a response in the atmospheric circulation that resembles the North Atlantic Oscillation or its hemispheric equivalent the Arctic Oscillation. It has also been noted that this response appears to follow the changes in solar irradiance by a few years, depending on the exact indicator of solar variability. Here we propose and test a mechanism for this lag based on the known impact of atmospheric circulation on the Atlantic Ocean, the extended memory of ocean heat content anomalies and their subsequent feedback onto the atmosphere. We use results from climate model experiments to develop a simple model for the relationship between solar variability and North Atlantic climate.
Geophysical Research Letters 04/2013; 40(2):10733-

East Asia isn’t the only place those studies were done. The common thread about the LIA and the MWP that they were local events and not world wide according to the IPCC. All of the other ones agree with the East Asian studies. One in particular was done off the cost of Peru. Whatever the cause, whether the drop in sunspots is a direct or an indicator for something else, I’m staying with activity in the sun. Of course there can be other factors. But I think that no matter how you look at it, sunspot activity is related to climate change. I’m pretty sure this is just a rehash of what has been put out before in an effort to distance any relationship between solar activity and climate, leaving co2 as the only factor, with a slight twist that there actually was a globally warming and cooling before the current period. (hard for the IPCC to deny now, but the arguments were settled years ago, so it’s “settled science”, except it isn’t) Accepting that there were periods of warming and cooling in the recent past would have laid the burden on them to prove in the absence of increased or decreased co2, the causes, which they don’t have any. And of course let’s not forget the new and improved temperature reconstructions that show little temperature changes prior to the Industrial Revolution.
They have an agenda, accurate climate science isn’t it. Or science in general.

Willis,
You’ve shown that the Lamb winter severity index doesn’t make a very good match with solar minima, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the solar correlation with climate is wrong—it might as well mean that the Lamb index isn’t a good measure of what climate was doing during the Maunder. So I took a look at the CET, extended back to 1538 by Tony Brown. What I see is a temperature maximum at 1650 dropping continuously to a low at 1700-1710. It’s as good (or better) a match as one could expect.

Thanks, Don. As I point out above, the CET clearly shows that during the latter part of both the Maunder and Dalton minima the temperatures warmed steadily … if you could explain how that WARMING is a result of a continuing long term solar COOLING you might have something.

“Next, according to Kirby (as well as the other datasets I’ve looked at) the earth warmed for the latter half of both the Maunder and the Dalton minima … what is Kirby’s (or your) explanation for that?”

As I noted above, the explanation should be obvious. SSN was rising during the latter part of the Maunder & Dalton Minima, which refer to decades of lower than average SSN, but not constantly low. The numbers fall into the trough, then rise out of it, but are below normal for the whole period.

“Next, according to Kirby (as well as the other datasets I’ve looked at) the earth warmed for the latter half of both the Maunder and the Dalton minima … what is Kirby’s (or your) explanation for that?”

As I noted above, the explanation should be obvious. SSN was rising during the latter part of the Maunder & Dalton Minima, which refer to decades of lower than average SSN, but not constantly low. The numbers fall into the trough, then rise out of it, but are below normal for the whole period.

Sorry, not true.

Check the data, sturgis. The Maunder SSNs rose well AFTER the start of the increase in temperature in ~1680. And in any case, because the effects are claimed to be cumulative, in that years of below-average temperatures are supposed to add up to make the cold period, we shouldn’t see any rise in temps until well after the rise in SSNs.

Finally, the Dalton minimum is only two cycles long … are we really supposed to believe that the 11-year cycle is not visible in any climate datasets, but if two of them occur together it causes detectable global cooling? You’ll have to explain how that is supposed to work …

BTW, I for one would not use BEST data for anything please refer to Steven Goddard and GISS NOAA, Hadcrut Etc. You will realize this in 10 years time when it hits the fan big time. Its only being realized now in mainstream media. LOL

Oh, yeah, Alec, one more thing about “cosmogenic isotopes” (14C and 10Be). Before you can convince me that those isotope levels serve as a thermometer for the temperature in 1066, it would seem necessary to show that they serve as a thermometer for the temperature in 1966, or 1906 for that matter … I’ve never seen that evidence.

But you, as someone who obviously believes that cosmic rays are indeed thermometers, must have seen such evidence and can refer me to it.

Or, if you haven’t seen such evidence … then why do you believe that cosmic rays are good thermometers?

Maunder T did not bottom c. 1680. The coldest decade of the MM was probably the 1690s, or possibly 1686-95, depending upon data set. The coldest winter in the historical record for the past 500 years at least was 1708/9, but that was largely an extreme WX event in the midst of a multi-decade cold cycle.

Willis Eschenbach says:
June 23, 2014 at 3:15 pm
Alec Rawls says:
June 23, 2014 at 1:36 pm“Kirkby’s 2008 survey paper cites a bunch of stuff. …”
… galactic cosmic rays (note the inverted scale; high cosmic ray fluxes are associated with cold temperatures) …
Look at the freakin’ graph … do you see the “high cosmic ray flux” around 1050? Care to point out the “cold temperature” associated with that? And in any case, with five totally different temperature datasets, saying something is “associated with” cold temperatures is a joke.

The cosmic ray ‘data’ is even more of a joke [or even a fraud]. What Kirby shows in Figure two
[reproduced here at the left] http://www.leif.org/research/Kirby-Flaw-GCR-14C.pdf as the cosmic ray flux [blue curve] is NOT the cosmic ray flux, but the flux with the geomagnetic modulation removed. At the right I show the true flux [as given by the 14C data] as the red curve. The large variation [red curve] over the past 200 years is not due to the Sun, but to the Earth’s varying magnetic field. If the real cosmic ray flux was a significant driver then the true flux should be plotted at the left, not the flux with the Earth’s variation removed.

Willis, did any you guys even bother to look at the magnetic field of the earth since it has decreased 10- 15 % since, oh my, since the Industrial Revolution? It should be apparent to you the cross sectional area at the poles is not doubled in field strength but squared. And since magnetic fields are not known to be smoothed, but can be stronger or weaker in places, the burden of proof is on you. I can ask all the questions within reason if you are trying to prove something that is not. Prove to me that it is not the magnetic field of the earth. Prove to me that there isn’t a relationship between the pressure gradient in the solar wind, the compression of the atmosphere (remember as the IPCC told me, a little makes a big difference) which also heats it up, ( they use that technique in the toamack reactor to bring gas to a plasma state, squeezing it by magnetic fields) you know like in a CME, the magnetic fields of other planets, namely Jupiter, as to whether they buck or boost that field strength. Cosmic ray flux is just the tip of the iceberg. Ignoring this will not make it go away, nor calling it an opinion. It’s a system, non linear and chaotic. Looking for precise pieces to this puzzle is ridiculous. It’s too bad you can’t see the relationship between sunspot activity and climate change, I can.

Thanks, Eliza, but I fear that an unexplained and unsupported opinion carries no weight on this scientific website. There are issues with the Berkeley Earth data, to be sure … but you haven’t even begun to show that it is not useful for comparing a few adjacent decades as I have done.

Eliza says:
June 23, 2014 at 3:34 pm

CET shows nothing there’s not even a slight trend if you include latest data 2014http://www.climate4you.com/CentralEnglandTemperatureSince1659.htm

Sturgishooper For the 1000 year quasi periodicity see Fig 4 athttp://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2013/10/commonsense-climate-science-and.html
The key uncertainty in climate forecasting is where we are in relation to this 1000 year periodicity .
Looking at the downtrend in solar activity since cycle 22 fig 9 and the temperature trends since 1000AD Fig 3 it would seem more likely than not that we have just passsed the peak and should head down (with some bumps ) for the next 600 years or so.

Hi Willis. No, I won’t pick one paper and argue with you here rather than at JoNovas. My suggestion was to read them for background knowledge you may not have.

My sole point was clear. There are at least three influences: solar whatever, GHGs, and Earths own natural variations, of which ENSO, PDO, AMO and Arctic ice are evidence (coupled, who knows. I am intrigued by the stadium wave as an equivalent of a phase locked loop oscillator. Anybody with a cell phone owns one). To say that only one factor explains everything is wrong in my view. To say that one of those big three is not a factor at all is equally wrong for the same reasons, again in my view.
Factors meaning on decadal or longer time scales.

The data used in Figure 4 looks suspect. Perhaps it is reasonable to assume a greater error margin as you move back in time, but the filtered time series also shows larger swings (trends) as you go back in time and that is a sign those trends are noise. There is no reason to expect variations in Earth temperature trends to have reduced significantly over the past 400 years.

So why not do it simple Willis. On the following graph there is a 11 year mean on both HadCRUT4 and TSI from 1850 until today. There seem to be an astonishing relation between the sun’s irradiance and the global temperature. But something seem to happen in the 1980s….

I find it intriguing. What do you think?

Thanks, Trond. I think that anyone using an 11-year mean on sunspot/TSI data should study my document “Sunny Spots Along the Parana River” until they give up that pernicious averaging practice entirely.

Although it wasn’t called the little ice age until the 1930′s, the effect had been known for centuries before that. I think it is a mistake to attribute it to eddy or lamb. Numerous writers have referenced it in past centuries. Charles dickens noticed the effect having been born during the very cold period at the start of the 19th century and lived to see some very warm periods.

Tonyb, thanks for your attempt, but dang it, QUOTE WHAT YOU DISAGREE WITH!

Far as I’ve seen, nobody, especially me, has attributed the concept or the identification of the Little Ice Age to either Eddy or Lamb, so you are arguing against a claim that nobody has made.

Folks, it’s more than just a good idea to quote what you disagree with. The mere process of looking for the quote that you remember as being wrong can be very valuable in showing you that you may have misunderstood what someone is saying.

And as a result, it can keep you from making these kind of foolish mistakes attacking a non-existent position …

You have not shown that T did start rising before SSN. But even if it did, solar activity isn’t the only variable. However, within margin of error, the correlation with rising & falling T is at worst too close to call.

But if you have in fact compared the average annual T in CET with SSN, I’d appreciate seeing those data & your statistical analysis of correlation.

Motl has analyzed rate of cooling and warming for different periods in CET, although he hasn’t posted cold/hot rankings by ten-year period. He found the fastest cooling of the MM during the 30 years 1666-95 and the fastest warming from 1691 to 1720 (five years out of the MM as usually defined).

… In 2011 I wrote this article which extended cet to 1538. In it i Compared the temperature reconstructions of both Hubert lamb and Michael Mann.

Tony, the idea that Mann’s reconstruction is anything but GIGO is laughable. You trying to use it in a scientific paper is a joke. It is well-known that Mann made a foolish newbie math error in that paper, using un-centered principal component analysis that mined for hockeysticks. He also lied about the analysis to a Senate committee, and refused to reveal his data and code despite numerous requests. Finally, he knew before he published it that his results were bogus, as he stashed away inconvenient results in a folder named CENSORED TO 1400 … and you think what he did is science?

Really?

I fear that your failure to deal with or even discuss these issues in your analysis renders your entire approach worse than useless. Sorry to say that, but when you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. Since you either can’t see or are unwilling to discuss the glaring and widely discussed problems with the Mann hockeystick analysis, why on earth should I pay even the slightest attention to your opinions on anything?

Earth’s temperature is regulated by hurricanes, not CO2 or other aerosols. The gradual increase in temperature since the last major advance of ice 11,500 years ago is due to gradual planetary thawing after an anomalous ice dump, not CO2. When oceans get too hot, they make big storms that puncture the upper atmosphere, and transporting huge quantities of moist warm air. The heat radiates into space and the cold moist air falls back to Earth in various forms. The stronger the hurricane is, the greater the heat will be radiated into space and the greater quantity of cold moisture will cover the ground. This is why extreme cold follows extreme warmth.

The cold spells, such as this past winter, are caused by changes in the electrostatic and electromagnetic forces holding the polar atmosphere into place. Low solar output (not just sunspot activity) results in upper polar atmosphere over Greenland falling to the troposphere and giving cold winters in the Eastern US. It has nothing to do with the amount of heat leaving the Sun.

Changes in the electrostatic and electromagnetic activity of the Earth at the planetary scale also affects the intensity and path of the jet streams, ocean currents, and cloud formation.

You referenced the relation between Sunspot minima and temperature as being a relatively modern idea dating to 1976 .

I was merely pointing out that the lia ( and the sunspot association that was the point of the article) dates back to way before this time.

I am not agreeing or disagreeing with anything else, merely that eddy was the latest in a long line of correspondents.

As regards the association between sunspots and low temperatures, whilst there appears to be a correlation at times, there appears to be limited correlation at other times, when it would have been expected, according to the theory. As an example the sporer from 1500 to 1550 appears to have been rather warm. The 1450 to1500 sporer period however appears to have been rather cold.

Hi Willis. No, I won’t pick one paper and argue with you here rather than at JoNovas.

Fine, Rud. Then go back to Jo’s. If you don’t want to reveal your evidence, then you’re of no interest to me. Why should I talk science with someone who won’t take a stand and defend it with evidence?

Regarding discussing things with you at Jo’s, as I told Jo and David, I’m not doing anything further at JoNova until she and David publish all of the hidden data, code, equations, model, out-of-sample testing, and the rest of the stuff she’s refused to reveal to date. That kind of withholding and doling out of data and results isn’t my idea of science, so I said over there that I’m out of their game until she decides to stop faffing around and to act in a transparent and scientific fashion by publishing everything.

The data used in Figure 4 looks suspect. Perhaps it is reasonable to assume a greater error margin as you move back in time, but the filtered time series also shows larger swings (trends) as you go back in time and that is a sign those trends are noise.

And while the record is fragmentary and based on a small number of stations, it’s the best we have, and it is likely quite good for comparison of nearby decades.

Second, the greater variation is not a sign of greater “noise” as you claim. Instead, it is the inevitable result of using a smaller number of stations which are located in a smaller geographical area. Both of those will lead to greater variance in the signal … but that doesn’t make it “noise”. It is still the real average of real data.

Does anyone here know or have a suspicion as to what caused the Little Ice Age?

In my opinion, lots of folks have suspicions, but nobody knows. I’ve never seen an explanation that’s held water for either why we went into the LIA (long before the Maunder minimum) or why we’ve been gradually warming ever since then.

The long slow thaw was not a polemic. It was a serious study using measured language and incorporating thousands of references that examined the period to 1538 and used as a guide the studies of both Mann and lamb. I make it quite clear there, and in various other articles that I do not agree with Mann. He does not begin to reflect natural variability and I have said this numerous times here and elsewhere over the past five years.

Whatever our personal opinions of him and his science he remains far more credible than you or I and consequently we have to deal with that in our own way. I choose to do it in a measured way and you will have a different approach.

Gee what totally convinced me, the killer fact – so to speak was that in the ‘decade 1425 to1435 ‘Global Temps’ declined at their fastest rate on record. I mean at that point for me the science was settled.
Huh?
Wa?
In 1593!!!! Galileo Galilei invented a rudimentary water thermoscope, which for the first time, allowed temperature variations to be measured.
Darn!

(You know I’m beginning to think that Willis is actually parodying ‘Climate Scientists’ who seem to be able to hang the grandest theories on the flimsiest of data.)

By the way I was down at the beach for a paddle just then and I noticed that the ‘Pacific Ocean’ was warmer than it usually is at this time of year.

Willis, did any you guys even bother to look at the magnetic field of the earth since it has decreased 10- 15 % since, oh my, since the Industrial Revolution? It should be apparent to you the cross sectional area at the poles is not doubled in field strength but squared. And since magnetic fields are not known to be smoothed, but can be stronger or weaker in places, the burden of proof is on you. I can ask all the questions within reason if you are trying to prove something that is not. Prove to me that it is not the magnetic field of the earth.

Thanks, rishrac. I hate to say it, but clearly you have a deep fundamental misunderstanding of science. In science, nothing can every be proven. So asking me to prove something is meaningless.

In addition, you misunderstand the burden of proof. For example, if you think that the earth’s magnetic field strength or the magnetic field strength of Jupiter affects the climate, then it is your job to come up with the detailed theory and the evidence for that claim. And you may be right about the magnetic fields, there’s lots we don’t know about the climate.

When you do come up with your detailed theory and your supporting evidence, I encourage you strongly to write it up and send it to Anthony, so that everyone can see if they can find fault with your logic or your data or your code or your evidence. If nobody can find fault with it, then it gets provisionally accepted as valid until the day someone may eventually find something that supercedes it.

But your idea that it’s up to me to “prove” that your vague, detail-free, physical mechanism free, evidence-free claims are untrue?

Sorry … that’s not how science works.

Since I can’t show a negative (i.e. that the 11-year sunspot cycle doesn’t affect the climate), what I’m doing is showing in as many climate datasets as possible that there is no significant effect. But no, I can’t prove that. All I can do is stack up contrary evidence.

Willis, you are not your usual self today. I must say, your somewhat snide ( in my view) reply to TonyB just above proves it. Anybody who is following these debates knows what ClimateReason is trying to do through painstaking original historical research. His website explains it in detail.
Understand natural variability back behind CET. And anybody who has bothered to read his fascinating posts (mostly at CE) would know he is as much or more critical of Mann’s hockey stick than Steve MacIntrye. And, in my opinion, with better popular arguments against the Mannian erasure of natural variability. Not everybody gets white noise/red noise and all that fancy statistical math. Everybody gets blizzards, rains, heat waves that caused crop failures, and such.
Calm down, and stop swinging so wildly at ‘friends’ like Tony, Don Easterbrook, etc.
Unfortunately for you, those wild swings are unlikely to be ‘disappeared’ as they probably would at SkS, RC, or other Warmunist sites.

The varying length of the 11-year cycle has been found to be strongly correlated with longterm variations of the northern hemisphere land surface air temperature since the beginning of systematic temperature variations from a global network, i. e. during the past 130 years. Although direct temperature observations before this interval are scarce, it has been possible to extend the correlation back to the 16th century due to the existence of a series of proxy temperature data published by Groveman and Landsberg in 1979. Reliable sunspot data do not exist before 1750, but we have been able to derive epochs of minimum sunspot activity from auroral observations back to 1500 and combine them with the direct observations to a homogeneous series.

Comparison of the extended solar activity record with the temperature series confirms the high correlation between solar activity and northern hemisphere land surface air temperature and shows that the relationship has existed through the whole 500-year interval for which reliable data exist.

A corresponding influence of solar activity has been demonstrated in other climatic parameters. Thus, both the date of arrival of spring in the Yangtze River Valley as deduced from phenological data and the extent of the sea-ice in the Atlantic sector of the Arctic sea have been shown to be correlated with the length of the sunspot cycle during the last 450 years.

Conclusion

70-90 years oscillations in global mean temperature are correlated with corresponding oscillations in solar activity. Whereas the solar influence is obvious in the data from the last four centuries, signatures of human activity are not yet distinguishable in the observations.

Introduction

Variations in the activity of the Sun greatly influence the physics of the upper atmosphere. Thus, magnetic disturbances, occurrence of auroras at low latitudes, sporadic ionization above -80 km altitude, and – as a consequence of the latter – reduced quality of shortwave radio transmissions all appear to follow the approximately 11-year soler activity cycle. This cycle is most distinctly seen in two observed parameters: the sun- spot number and the 10,7 cm radiation. For analytical purposes the intensity of the 10,7 cm radiation may be the best suited, but it has the drawback that observations were first initiated in the 1950s. For studies involving longer data series the only usable directly observed signature of solar activity is the varying number of sunspots. This has been subject of observation through several hundred years and may be regarded as reliable since 1750 (Eddy, 1976). The sunspot number, generally denoted R, is highly correlated with the 10,7 cm flux.

… Whatever our personal opinions of him and his science [Mann] remains far more credible than you or I …

Nonsense. Read the climategate emails, you’ll see that the other scientists thought he was full of bull, and that his study was nonsense. And his credibility was further damaged by his illegal actions in advocating and participating in the destruction of documents sought under a Freedom of Information Act request.

Finally, his wild attacks and his lawsuits have turned the stomach of even hardened activists. As a result, he’s way marginalized at this point, and his credibility is shot.

But my main point is, it has been clearly demonstrated that his hockeystick results were obtained through INCORRECT MATH. Is there some part of that which is not clear? His results are meaningless junk … and you clinging to them and citing them and discussing them as though they had not been thoroughly falsified destroys your own credibility entirely. You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas—you cite and discuss garbage as though it were science, and everyone will conclude that your science is garbage. You may not like it, my anonymous friend, but that’s how the world works.

Does anyone here know or have a suspicion as to what caused the Medieval Warm Period (in the northern hemisphere only)? – (Some scientists provide evidence of its global nature). Other scientists argue that it was not synchronous, ie they have no evidence that it was not globally synchronous. An obvious outlier suggest it may have been. (If only we had thermometers with good spread back in the day. Even today we argue about thermometer placement in the US OF A).

AbstractOur reconstruction for warm/dry conditions between ca. A.D. 960–1020 closely agrees with Northern Hemisphere tree-ring evidence for the MWP and shows that the MWP was possibly synchronous in both hemispheres, as suggested by Villalba (1994).http://his.library.nenu.edu.cn/upload/soft/haoli/112/199.pdf

Willis writes: “Finally, it appears that that the proxy data that [Kirkby is] using is Mann 2008 … And since that misleading proxy data seems to be what Kirby is relying on the most … well, you can do the math.”

Nope, he is using Moberg 2005 [Kirkby’s reference #29, cited in the caption to Figure 2].

“Look at the freakin’ graph … do you see the “high cosmic ray flux” around 1050? Care to point out the “cold temperature” associated with that?

The graph does indeed show a substantial dip in GCR, but only vis a vis the very high levels before and after. At bottom it gets around Dalton level, and the temperature proxies do indeed show a modest (Dalton sized) dip in global temperatures around that time. Not that I wouldn’t expect to see some counter-examples–other things besides solar activity might also affect climate–but I don’t see how this is a counter-example at all.

“why do you believe that cosmic rays are good thermometers?”

I don’t think they are thermometers at all. I think the cosmogenic isotopes that cosmic rays create have the potential to provide a usable proxy for solar activity, if they can be sufficiently dated and calibrated. Thermometers measure temperature, which is a variable that may or may not be driven by solar activity. I want to COMPARE the cosmic ray record to thermometers (to the temperature record) in order to judge whether temperature may be driven by solar activity.

Leif’s link tohis graph of Kirkby’s 14C data before the geomagnetic impact was removed does not seem to be working.

… It turns out that this strong association of sunspot minima and temperature is a fairly recent development. …

The idea that sunspots influence temperature goes back to William Herschel.

As part of his attempts to determine if there was a link between solar activity and the terrestrial climate, Herschel also collected records of the price of wheat, as direct meteorological measurements were not available for a sufficient period. He theorised that the price of wheat would be linked to the harvest and hence to the weather over the year. This attempt was unsuccessful due to the lack of previous solar observations against which to compare the wheat prices, and while similar techniques sometimes led to claims of success,[18] modern statistical methods have shown a lack of correlational significance.[19] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Herschel

For many years people have tried to use sunspots to forecast the weather without much success … unless the Farmer’s Almanac and Piers Corbyn count … or maybe not.

Is my second question now spam? I simply asked for the suspected cause of the Medieval Warm Period and its global scale and synchrony. Does anyone have a lead on this?

TODAY we are in a fierce debate about measuring temperature with satellites and modern thermometers. Now go back 1,000 years. How is it that your could grow figs in Germany and the rest of the world was just staying cold? (Mann et al). These are serious questions.

“Solar activity has been pretty much flat the past 300 years. For the Maunder Minimum we just had a workshop on that. Here is a report …”

I was the only member of the public in attendance at the Extreme Space Weather Events Workshop you mentioned, via GoToMeeting. I have all 14 Maunder Minimum pre-workshop papers and the presentations. I specifically paid very close attention to what you were saying in your presentations. Dr. Svalgaard, your statement about a “flat” solar output only applies to the Sun’s magnetic cycle, not the sunspot number cycle, which are not the same thing, as you know.

You have reconstructed the magnetic cycle with your IHV index successfully. Good job. You’ve been working on a sunspot reconstruction process also, the results of which you indicate on page 29, the last page of http://www.leif.org/research/Confronting-Models-with-Reconstructions-and-Data.ppt. Anyone who looks at the nearly 300 year SSN history recontruction of yours will come away realizing it isn’t even close to flat over the centuries or even the most recent decades/cycles.

You know we don’t get our light and heat from the Sun via the magnetic flux, you know we get it from the irradiance, the “photon flux”, by definition, also a measure of “brightness”. You also know the F10.7cm flux is used as a solar activity proxy, which has a very nearly linear relationship to SSN over time, and represents radiant activity very well, which is why it is used. You know the Sun’s electric field is the basis for the photon flux definition, and you know that the photon flux is what heats the planets. You also know that the area under either the SSN or F10.7 flux curves integrated over time represents the total amount of solar heating we have received over that time.

Your page 29 SSN graph clearly indicates major differences between cycles. You must know that the amount of heat the planets receive via photon flux has varied significantly over time, cycle to cycle. In fact, a professional like you knows all about the daily solar data reports found here http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/indices/quar_DSD.txt . I recommend everyone look at the day-to-day variation of solar output as registered there in SSN, 10.7 flux, and solar flares. There you will notice activity levels that vary over short time periods in magnitude exceeding the oft-quoted 0.1% variation in TSI. UV is also known to change much more in magnitude than higher wavelengths.

So now everyone else knows that the solar activity that counts towards changing the temperature here, through UV penetration into the ocean and atmospheric water vapor, and through IR, changes day-to-day, week-to-week, monthly, yearly, by the decade, and by the solar cycle. Every solar cycle has a length and magnitude that differ from each other most of the time. The recent “modern maximum” in solar activity – notice I didn’t say “grand maximum” – because it’s not necessary – even if by chance it is true – has provided enough extra heating of the ocean over its cooling rate to accumulate more ocean heat content (OHC). The discharge of that heat over time obscures the direct effect of relative amounts of solar heating, and makes it very difficult to extract an average solar cycle length temperature signal. You can ask Willis about that last part.

You cannot say that the Sun doesn’t vary enough to change the climate, when in fact the Earth responds to the Sun’s variable heating every day, changing the weather statistics every day that are used to generate long-term climate statistics, all the while “yesterday’s” solar heat stored in the ocean is also releasing and affecting temperatures, while the Earth continually cools to space via several outlets. You definitely cannot say with any veracity that the Sun’s heat output has been “flat” for 300 years, going completely against the accumulated experience and history of observers throughout that time, and the very laws of physics, and your own SSN reconstruction.

The challenge we all face is understanding the different contributions to temperature data from heat released via the oceans, solar direct heating, and the various cooling rates over different parts of the globe. Whatever CO2 does in relationship to temperature, IF it does anything, would also be modulated by the ever-changing solar radiant output.

Dr. Svalgaard you are a true pioneer in our understanding of solar activity and geomagnetics. However, the point is, the Sun does vary, enough.

I suspect the same causes as for the Holocene Climatic Optimum, the Minoan, Roman and Modern Warm Periods, and those between the Optimum and the Minoan.

Anyone who denies that the Medieval Warm Period was global ignores objective reality. The evidence is overwhelming. If anything, it was more pronounced in some other regions of the globe than the North Atlantic zone.

Whenever anybody mentions the sunspot cycles and those notable minimal periods, the source of information I turn to is the book, by “Willie” Wei Hok Soon; and Stephen H Yaskell, “The Maunder Minimum, and the Variable Sun-Earth System.”

I’m guessing that Yaskell was more of a ghost author, as it’s a quite lengthy narrative and Dr. Soon probably felt he needed some help with his English. But I don’t know that, and wish I had asked Willie about that, when he referred me to that book of theirs.

It’s an extremely informative book, and Dr. Willie Soon, is a fun person to chat with, even in just a few e-mails.

And I notice, that he is one of the named three “heroes” of climate realism. He is well deserving of that recognition.

I really don’t care whether it’s the sun or not. I do want to know the causes of LIA and MWP? I realise that we don’t know. I asked the questions knowing that we don’t know. Yet we ‘do know’ what the hot and bother is all about today. Just food for thought.

I really do want an answer to this simple question. How is it that the Medieval Warm Period was os hemispherical? Read below first.

It is evident that Europe experienced, on the whole, relatively mild climate conditions during the earliest centuries of the second millennium (i.e., the early Medieval period). Agriculture was possible at higher latitudes (and higher elevations in the mountains) than is currently possible in many regions, and there are numerous anecdotal reports of especially bountiful harvests (e.g., documented yields of grain) throughout Europe during this interval of time. Grapes were grown in England several hundred kilometers north of their current limits of growth, and subtropical flora such as fig trees and olive trees grew in regions of Europe (northern Italy and parts of Germany) well north of their current range. Geological evidence indicates that mountain glaciers throughout Europe retreated substantially at this time, relative to the glacial advances of later centuries (Grove and Switsur, 1994). A host of historical documentary proxy information such as records of frost dates, freezing of water bodies, duration of snowcover, and phenological evidence (e.g., the dates of flowering of plants) indicates that severe winters were less frequent and less extreme at times during the period from about 900 – 1300 AD in central Europe……………………

Some of the most dramatic evidence for Medieval warmth has been argued to come from Iceland and Greenland (see Ogilvie, 1991). In Greenland, the Norse settlers, arriving around AD 1000, maintained a settlement, raising dairy cattle and sheep. Greenland existed, in effect, as a thriving European colony for several centuries. While a deteriorating climate and the onset of the Little Ice Age are broadly blamed for the demise of these settlements around AD 1400,http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/shared/articles/medclimopt.pdf

Leif’s link to his graph of Kirkby’s 14C data before the geomagnetic impact was removed does not seem to be working. Try:

Bob Weber says:
June 23, 2014 at 5:20 pmDr. Svalgaard you are a true pioneer in our understanding of solar activity and geomagnetics. However, the point is, the Sun does vary, enough.
The recent work on the SSN, shows that solar activity in the 20th, 19th, and 18th centuries were pretty much the same: http://www.leif.org/research/New-Group-Numbers.png
Of course the Sun varies, but there has been no long-term trend the past 300 years. The variation seems to be quasi-cyclic with about a 100-yr ‘period’. So, I don’t know what you mean by ‘enough’.

Willis says: “Look more closely [at Bond’s graph], Alec. Half the time the isotopes lead the rafting, half the time they trail the rafting … and the rest of the time the isotopes have nothing to do with the rafting.”

Bond apparently posted some supplemental information on this issue when his paper was published. I haven’t looked into it, but it is referenced in the first column on his page 2133 where he writes:

The visual match among the records can be improved by adjusting the marine time series within chronological error (Web fig. 1).

Not sure how they dated the ice rafting debris but it was apparently not by cosmic nucleotides. In other words, they were not directly comparing the temperature proxy (amount of debris) to the solar activity proxies (14C and 10Be) by measuring both within the same geologic layer, but rather were using an independent method to date the rafting debris and comparing it to solar proxies from other sources.

This makes dating error on both sides relevant, with the potential discrepancy being equal to the sum of the possible errors on each side. Bond evidently went through the data by hand to see how many of the timing issues that you are noticing could be due to dating error. Of course these same dating errors also call into question his claimed results.

Web 3 sounds worth a look if anyone knows where to find it, but offhand I wouldn’t expect the dating accuracy to be such that inflection points would all lining up correctly even if solar activity were at all points the dominant climate driver (which I don’t think Bond is claiming).

I beg to differ. There is no way to hand wave away the Holocene Optimum, the Egyptian, Minoan and Roman Warm Periods and intervening cold periods, or the fact that prior interglacials have been warmer than this one. That the Team is concerned only with the Medieval Warm Period and the LIA doesn’t mean that skeptics should limit their critique of the “consensus” GHG hypothesis to just the past millennium.

But IMO it doesn’t matter, since the explanation for the MWP and LIA should prove the same as for previous warm and cool phases of this and prior interglacials.

I further suspect that the main underlying cause of both Bond Cycles in interglacials and the more pronounced D-O Cycles during glacials is ocean current variations, abrupt changes in which might be triggered by sudden outbursts of fresh water or SST from lagged solar variations, among other possible drivers of circulation and salinity and temperature parameters.

[snip – no, we aren’t going there, and I’m not going to have you overrun another thread with your link bombing. Plate tectonics don’t have anything to do with this discussion -Anthony]
—————————————————–
Snip me if need be but I am quite interested in the effects of water or land at the poles, as well as circum-global currents or lack there of on our global climate. Another post perhaps!…

I will second that vote. I think it’s EXTREMELY NARROW to presume that plate technonics may not have any influence on climate. RING OF FIRE, Anthony…ever heard of that? Why are there no “active volcanoes on the Atlantic side? Why do we have the hot spots, Iceland, Yellowstone and Hawaii? Plate tectonics have begun to give the answers to those questions. AND, because of the discharges into the atmosphere from said volcanoes, there may well be a “cause effect” on long term atmospheric physics. Remember the underwater volcanoes offshore from Antarctica might yet be shown to have influence on the floating ice. What other connections are there with the crustal surface, the surface water interface, and the dynamics and composition of the atmosphere. I don’t know completely myself. I’m hesitant to dismiss there posibility off hand. It is ILLUMINATING to note that 99.99% of all geologists (applied, AKA petroleum and mining) and academic, regarded plate techtonics as an “impossible theory” by a turn of the century (radical) French geologist. He was right, they were wrong.

REPLY: Well if you can show that plate tectonics change in 11 year cycles, or some other direct measurable sun-earth relationship, it might be worth discussing on a new thread, but I reserve the right to keep this one on track. – Anthony

I beg to differ. There is no way to hand wave away the Holocene Optimum, the Egyptian, Minoan and Roman Warm Periods and intervening cold periods, or the fact that prior interglacials have been warmer than this one…..

When tackling Warmists, try to stick to the goalposts. If not you will get a red card.

The Arctic Ocean was ice free during the Holocene Climate Optimum. You CANNOT use this argument against Warmists, but you at least have a basis to use the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. Check it out. Why do you think they are OBSESSED with these TWO period? Do you hear them screaming about the Holocene Hypsithermal? Solar.

I lack your long and heroic exposure to Warmunistas. I don’t know why you can’t use the thousands of almost ice free Arctic Ocean summers during the Holocene Optimum against them, but must accept your experience that they have some excuse for this fact. If it’s insolation, then they are wrong.

Which French geologist was that? I know of a German, Wegener, and a South African, du Toit (of partial French Huguenot ancestry), but no French geologist in the early history of plate tectonics. Please enlighten me. Thanks.

My first impression is you are trying to match things too closely. If the sun’s output changes, there are any number of lag effects, coupled with ocean cycles, which means any review of past temperature data with the sun’s output is not going to match exactly.

I do think this is the problem above, and your problem in general with examining the sun as the driver of climate. The alarmists do the same thing in the opposite direction, they dismiss late 20th century warming as being caused by the sun because the sun’s output was not increasing during this time, without accounting for lag effects and ocean cycles. The same sort of problem extends back into past history with your graphs above.

‘Lambs winter severity index’ is not a reliable indicator, for example. You are mixing an index of part of a year with an index of the sun’s output. Add lag effects, ocean cycles, problems with data, and it is meaningless.

The sun does not, and will not, EXACTLY match temperature indices due to variable lag and feedback effects which can span the order of decades, particularly with regards to the oceans, (which are entirely absent from the above discussion). Ocean changes have been suggested to account for some of the variability with regards to temperature proxies in some of Mann’s reconstructions, for example. The 20th century is also case in point, the PDO greatly complicated solar activity and the temperature record. Selected temperature indices may or may not match solar indices.

Dammit Willis, you always manage to make everything seem so …. uncertain.

The above is sarcasm/irony. I am grateful you are ruthlessly skeptical with all claims. Science can only work when every claim must be supported and can withstand the most rigorous cross examination. Keep up the good work.

The more I investigate climate and claims regarding climate change the more I come to the opinion that we simply don’t know, which is preferable to believing empty assertions of consensus.

As Mark Twain said:

It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.

What we know that we don’t know is a challenge and an opportunity. What we know for sure that just ain’t so will bite us.

“””””…..You know we don’t get our light and heat from the Sun via the magnetic flux, you know we get it from the irradiance, the “photon flux”, by definition, also a measure of “brightness”. …..”””””

Well strictly speaking, we don’t get either one of those things (light and heat) from the sun.

Yes, we do get the energy (electro-magnetic radiation) from the sun, but we make all the “heat”, right here on earth, and the “light” is all in your head, generated by your eye-brain partnership.

We even use quite different units, such as lumen, candela, lux, etc. to specify “light”, and differentiate it from EM radiant energy, which we measure in regular energy units, such as joule.

Irradiance is neither a measure of “photon flux” nor of “brightness.”

Irradiance is strictly a property of radiant power received on a surface, measured in watt per steradian per square metre

“Brightness” is a bastardized term for “Radiance” which has the unit of watt per steradian per square metre, and applies only to sources of radiant energy.

We use Radiant Emittance or radiant Exitance in watt per square meter, for sources of radiant energy; and Radiant Incidence in watt per square meter when referring to reception by irradiated surfaces. The angular distribution is irrelevant, when using those measures. One could describe that as radiant flux, but not “photon flux”, which would relate to photon numbers, and thus would be relevant only for radiation of a specific known photon energy. (wavelength or frequency).

The use of “brightness” as a scientific measure, is discouraged, because of its colloquial, every day common usage, as some nebulous property of “things”.

BUT ! when it IS used pseudo-scientifically, it invariably relates to “xxxxxx” per steradian per square metre., where “xxxxxx” could be radiant power (watt) or photometric “power” (lumen) or it is even used to specify the “brightness” of say an electron or ion source in some variety of units.

People messing around with particle sources , or even material evaporation sources, are presumably not third avenue street people, so generally they DO know precisely what they mean when talking “brightness” of whatever exotica sources they are mucking around with. So they sort of have Papal dispensation, to talk so loosely.

No derogation of third avenue street people is intended by any of the above.

And for the legal disclaimer; this was written straight out of my head, so no assurance can be given, that some French agency, has some nit picking differences, with my words and or speeling or capitalizations or even punctuation. But do use the correct terms, if you want to be understood.

Willis has not skewered anything. The “cause” of the Maunder and Dalton Minima is by definition the low number of sunspots observed during those decades. That is not in dispute, except possibly by Svalgaard’s team, intent upon changing how sunspots are counted. But I don’t know if they deny the existence of the minima.

What Willis is trying to show is that sunspot number is not correlated with climatic data sets of his choosing. This he has failed to do, as with his quest to show no correlation with the average 11 year solar cycle. To prove a negative requires doing much more work than he has done, while also ruling out all the lags and offsets that might mask the effect in the few, random, crude, mathematically questionable at best analyses he has done. This is not science but special pleading and bias confirmation on steroids.

CET winters were indeed sporadically colder during the Maunder, but not all winters. This aligns with the theory that low solar activity destabilizes the polar vortex, which allows cold air to move southward en masse. Sometimes, as last winter, the mass moves over the US, sometimes it will visit Europe.

Some descriptive thoughts:
1. Good scientific speculators are very specific, allowing others to take their specific and detailed statements and work and hold them up to public scrutiny.
2. Bad scientific speculators are not specific, often making implausible and unsupported statements and unfalsifiable proposals.
3. Good scientific speculators make a herculean effort to find just one instance in the data that refutes the proposed speculation. If they find one, they look for more and spare us the drive by “It’s the [ ] stupid” comments.
4. Bad scientific speculators do not look for any refutation. They only look for and use metrics that support their speculation.
5. Good scientific speculators vet their literature, doing the hard job of critiquing supporting research to see if it will likely hold up to public scrutiny.
6. Bad scientific speculators throw out “supporting” links without having done the hard work that is theirs to do.

If you have speculated on a proposed theory for these odd periods of history, which of these are you?

HI Willis,
Have you looked at the maximum temperatures in this record? Just an idea. Cool weather in the day time means pasture does not grow so well or crops germinate etc.
But, in Central Queensland we went through the 1969-1970 drought – no rain for 18 months. It was warm and cloudy through that second winter, then the drought broke with a 12 inch storm in September, that caused a flood that took all the unprotected (cf no grass cover) top soil and flattened miles of fencing.. That is beside the point.
During the drought we examined closely the rainfall record for our area – Springsure has record from 1863. In it we found the 11year cycle – two 11 year cycles, actually, that followed each other. One was wetter than the other although the actual amount of rain varied in each. Last century, the 1950 decade was wetter in CQ than any previous before the 1890s and then we had the 1970s – again very wet (1974 we had 31 inches in January. We sold out in 76 so have not studied stuff so much since.

You can find standard definitions for everything I mentioned, and brightness is part of it. Notice you made a much much bigger deal out of the use of that word than I did, although Jack Eddy reported in the BBC video circa 1977 “The Sunspot Mystery” that people back during the Maunder Minimum observed the sun to be “dim”. That qualitative observation can be tested scientifically in this day and age. That video link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3frXY_rG8c . I recommend it for it’s historical perspective.

So here is what I am hearing. You have to take the temperature data and wring the shit out of it through several bottom up Earth soaks, cycles, delayed washings, and rinses before you can discern the top down solar imprint on the trend. Yes? And the various solar enthusiasts here are arguing over the exact number of bottom up Earth soaks, cycles, delayed washings, and rinses. Yes?

Do you see my point? What I am hearing from solar enthusiasts is that the temperature trends are made up mostly of Earth’s soaks, cycles, delayed washings, and rinses. The process of extracting the solar signal from the wrung out temperature data takes a tiny set of tweezers gently shoved up a gnat’s ass.

You’ve exaggerated what some are saying about some data sets while overlooking the simple fact that it was colder during the SSN minima, with whatever lag, than during the intervals preceding and following them. There’s no way around that simple, indisputable fact.

It comes through in every relevant global physical scientific data set, in the historical, economic and cultural records, no matter where you look. So by solar enthusiasts, I assume you mean those who look dispassionately at the data.

This has been posted before – this shot clip from the global warming swindle does claim that the 11 year cycle is visible in tree ring proxy data and diatom proxies. I don’t know if links to the data and study used are available, but some digging should result in the data used for this presneation
( I don’t want to waste your precious time and thus the video may not be of much value without links to data).
However, I do find it strange that the author claims that the 11 year cycle and effects are easy seen in tree ring and diatom proxies.

Hey Mosher, before anything else, go explain your BEST Amundsen research station temperature modification from zero trend to a 0.2C warming trend.

For those who do not know, Amundsen is the exact South Pole science research base (home of famous BICEPT2 and the recent microwave background polarization possiblemfindingmprovingmbothninflation and gravity waves–although independent confirmations awaited, since there is a cosmic dust question their data cannot resolve). BEST modified the Amundsen/Scott careful scientific temperature record by eliminating 26 cold lows that ‘did not correspond to the regional climatology’. Data posted on BEST website for all to see, station 166900. Now, the problem is that Antarctica ” regional climatology” is either a BEST model fiction, or comprises data from the other Antarctic research bases like McMurdo–all of which are along the coasts and moderated by oceans. WTF! The BEST quality control manufacturing slight warming at the South Pole is a self evident fail. Subtract out all the extreme colds measured at the South Pole scientific research station in order to produce warming there in BEST data! It is posted on your website for all who care to look. Berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/stations/166900 Too late to take down or fix, since has been archived.
No fancy math needed to see the complete logical screwup in your BEST upward adjustment of the worlds most remote scientific research base’ exact temperature record.

You, Muller, and BEST should be relieved that you are too insignificant to be a direct target in my forthcoming next book on climate and energy, due out perhaps in the fall. Wrote you in, then edited you out. Bigger fish to fry. So many easy targets, I had to decide which ducks to shoot. Perhaps worth reconsidering…Since 166900 is a big fat easy duck.

Thanks for helping to expose the shameless “data adjustment” scam, which is finally starting to get ink in the MSM. The whole hoax is unraveling before our eyes, thanks at least as much to Mother Nature slapping the fraudsters down as to the efforts of pro-science skeptics over the past four decades.

I’m only sceptical of the evidence he is using. I dont think TSI (as proxied by sunspots) is an effective enough measure to be definitive.

For example if the only “sun data” I had was the time the sun rose and the time the sun set and I note that data, when averaged over enough years, leads to the conclusion the sun doesn’t impact on our climate. …then well thats intuitively a weak argument.

IMO using TSI is also a weak argument when we know the wavelengths that make up that total vary considerably…and the different waverlengths interact with our planet’s atmosphere and oceans differently and we dont really know how they vary over the longer term.

sturgishooper, which cold period are we talking about? Both? More than the two in the lead post? And what do you consider to be the time spans of these cold periods? There are different opinions in the scientific literature as to when these cold periods began and ended.

With respect to Willis’ post, just the Maunder and Dalton. But no matter which definition you prefer, the Maunder and Dalton were cooler than the periods before, in between and after them.

The same is true for other minima, eg the Spörer, Wolf and Oort. In denying this connection, you’re setting yourself up against 200 years of science by the best scientists who studied the issue, starting with Herschel. You could be right, but without abundant evidence supporting your view, please excuse me if I go with Herschel, Spörer, Maunder, Lamb and Eddy, et al.

No disrespect intended, but I have to wonder why you fail to find a solar influence on climate.

“I beg to differ. There is no way to hand wave away the Holocene Optimum, the Egyptian, Minoan and Roman Warm Periods and intervening cold periods, or the fact that prior interglacials have been warmer than this one.”

Now you’re talking climate cycles, which raises the risk of causing coronary events among several of the principals here. The operative is “Don’t Go There.” We must avert our eyes.

I compared the “400 years of Sunspot Observations” against the “Central England Temperature 1659-present”. I think that using the sunspot observations is better than assigning a date range to the two minima.

Until 1700 the sunspot is near 0 and the temp is falling. Both are at their minimum.
From 1700 to 1725 both are increasing rapidly.
Apart from the Dalton Minimum, the sunspot count doesn’t change much until the 2nd half of the 20th century. Neither does the temperature.
In the 2nd half of the 20th century both go up.

We could say that over short periods the correlation is poor, and there is a lot of unexplained variation, but the bigger picture seems to hold up.

There are three short periods where they don’t match well: the big rise in temperature at the end of the Maunder; only a small dip in the Dalton; the dip around 1880.

If you allow moves of 0.3 degrees for 15 years due to unexplained variability (Enso, PDO, volcanoes, chaos), that would cover all three of those.

Nobody notices mean temperature going up and down a tad but throw the seasons all out of whack for a decade or so and folk rally start to take notice. So do crops and livestock. Especially if you throw in the odd brass monkey winter or exceptional summer.

Can’t be bothered to pretty it up with titles etc. The top one is the annual rate of change of CET from monthly averages, the bottom one is SSN (dotted line is proposed correction). Of course it doesn’t line up precisely with solar cycles, do you really expect it to at temperate latitudes with the Atlantic rushing past?

I guess, to paraphrase Bill Clinton, it depends on what the meaning of “cycle” is.

How about fluctuation on roughly the same wavelength? A Bond or D-O cycle or fluctuation might be around 1470 years on average, which means mean trough to peak of 735 years, but could be, say, 500 to 900 years, depending upon other factors.

It seems to me that as the Holocene Interglacial slouches toward the next glacial the “cycles” are getting shorter, perhaps also increasing in amplitude as well as frequency. But that might just be an artifact of improving resolution. IMO however the downward trend of the past 3000 years is well supported.

Irish chronicles, especially those related to religious organizations are quite detailed and very old. The author describes reliable (and additional less reliable) recorded Irish descriptions of cold events that have a time stamp on them. By comparing these timed descriptions of cold events to volcanic activity ice core records, a clear and very close connection can be made as to the timing of the cold event and volcanic activity. In a very real sense, volcanos could be at least one of the elephants in the room. Folks, before you dismiss it, we are talking about volcanic activity that was frequent and MUCH more explosive than anything we have experienced in modern times. The mechanism is there (decreased solar insolation), though not completely understood and is the focus of several research projects and models. I don’t think they have the ENSO disruption right yet but they are getting closer. One of the current limits is the very poor modeling of ENSO further out than a couple months. These large eruptions lasted in some cases more than a year and the stratospheric road to the ice cores from distant locations took a while.

That indeed is not only better, but the only satisfactory methodology for testing the correlation of SSN with T. Differing start & end dates for the minima are a little fungible, but the actual count (as previously made) isn’t as subjective as picking approximate years to label as the “Minimum”. This is the point I tried to make with Willis, but which his anti-sun worship belief system compelled him obdurately or obstinately to abjure as apostasy.

Let me state the obvious Willis. You are clearly much better at this and smarter than I am. But just like with your fracking obsession you may be focusing on the wrong thing. The argument is not that sunspots are driving climate but that solar activity influences albedo changes, which drive temperature trends. I think that you are looking at the wrong thing.

sturgishooper says:
June 23, 2014 at 6:36 pmSvalgaard’s team, intent upon changing how sunspots are counted.
What we have uncovered is that sunspots were counted in different ways at different times. What we are doing is trying to bring all counts onto the same scale, referenced to the same method and way of counting, thus just the opposite of what you say.

71% of this planets surface is ocean. It does not absorb energy as a “near blackbody” but rather as a “selective surface”. Therefore looking only at TSI is disingenuous. Spectral variance is critical.

Energy absorbed below the overturning layer can accumulate, and it is the shorter frequencies that penetrate to these depths. It is also these frequencies that vary most between solar cycles. It is notable that surface UV has increased ~ 10 – 20% in the last 30 years, but stabilised since the mid 1990s –http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/uv-exposure.html

It should also be noted that UV-A still has the power of ~10 w/m2 at 50m depth.

Changes in ocean heat content due to this mechanism would be slow and cumulative below the thermocline. This would allow short diurnal and seasonal signatures to occur in SSTs, with 11 year signatures masked or smeared due to deeper circulation patterns. This mechanism could easily account for 0.8C in 150 years.

The good news is that the UV variance is so great that the data is highly resistant to being “stamped flat”.

Volcanic activity does not explain climatic fluctuations like the MWP or LIA. There may well be connections between climate and volcanism and even between volcanic activity and the sun, moon, planets and stars, but correlation is lacking for the well-supported centennial-scale cycles, if I may call them that, and volcanism alone.

Your baseless assertion that “Folks, before you dismiss it, we are talking about volcanic activity that was frequent and MUCH more explosive than anything we have experienced in modern times. The mechanism is there (decreased solar insolation), though not completely understood and is the focus of several research projects and models” is false on its face (not to mention that anyone who uses the word “folks” to mean anything other than his or her parents is immediately suspect).

You do have Tambora toward the end of the LIA (during the already underway Dalton Minimum), but nothing comparable even to Krakatoa (early in the Modern Warm Period) at its beginning. Where are the initiating mega-eruptions in the 14th and early 15th century that your special pleading, hand waving excuse to ignore the obvious solar influences requires?

There is a possible mid-1400s (probably South Pacific) event of some significant VEI magnitude, but by then the LIA was already well underway. Sorry, but volcanoes don’t wash.

That sunspots were counted in different ways at different times in the past is hardly a discovery.

What you are doing is trying to impose your way of counting retroactively on recalcitrant practitioners of real science, which just happens, big surprise, to support the Team. Who is paying for this supposedly purely disinterested, corrective scientific activity on your part? Let me guess. Could it be the same paymasters as the Team?

Exactly so. Willis Eschenbach has been presenting a series of focused analyses, testing particular hypotheses with respect to specific relevant data, and finding that certain common claims about solar variation and Earth climate response have been promoted and disseminated without much evidentiary support. Maybe one day he’ll delve into Beryllium isotopes or changes in magnetic field strength, but today we have sunspot minima and a particular climate index that turns out to be pretty independent. It is worth while to absorb these points.

I would also like to thank Rud Istvan and Tonyb for illuminating elaborational comments, which seem pretty mild to me, not critical of anything Willis Eschenbach wrote in the intro.

TimTheToolMan:IMO using TSI is also a weak argument when we know the wavelengths that make up that total vary considerably…and the different waverlengths interact with our planet’s atmosphere and oceans differently and we dont really know how they vary over the longer term.

I wouldn’t rule that out, but there isn’t the supporting/testing evidence either. Or is there?

sturgishooper says:
June 23, 2014 at 8:39 pmWhat you are doing is trying to impose your way of counting retroactively on recalcitrant practitioners of real science, which just happens, big surprise, to support the Team. Who is paying for this supposedly purely disinterested, corrective scientific activity on your part? Let me guess. Could it be the same paymasters as the Team?

You have no idea what you are talking about. The revision of the sunspot number is a collaborative effort involving dozens of experts from across the world, supported by the Royal Observatory of Belgium, the National Solar Observatory, Stanford University, the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Specola Solare Ticinese. You can learn more here [should you care to educate yourself]: http://www.leif.org/research/CEAB-Cliver-et-al-2013.pdf

Not being a mind reader, if a man posts here anonymously to me he is indeed anonymous. I have no way to know who the person posting as tonyb might be. If he wants to post under his own name, he’s free to do so. Until then, he’s anonymous to me, and will be treated as such.

… It turns out that this strong association of sunspot minima and temperature is a fairly recent development. …

The idea that sunspots influence temperature goes back to William Herschel

.

Thanks for quoting me, Bob. It makes it easy to verify that I was not talking about the 11-year sunspot cycle, which Hershel did indeed comment on, but on the association of sunspot minima such as the Dalton or Maunder and temperature … about which Herschel said nothing.

I’m already fully educated as to what you’re up to, thanks. It doesn’t matter how many co-conspirators you have recruited to try to enforce your new orthodoxy on the recalcitrant heretics who persist in practicing science.

Your unwillingness to answer my question as to your funding says it all. Not that I needed to know. The question was rhetorical, since I already know.

sturgishooper says:
June 23, 2014 at 8:52 pmI’m already fully educated as to what you’re up to, thanks.
You give a very good impression of someone who doesn’t have a clue. {and the source of my funding was mentioned, but if you already knew, that should not have been a surprise}.

I have more than a clue, and so do you. Why don’t you let readers know when, why and how your current crusade to overturn perfectly good SSN counting systems began. And if you can, please distinguish your funding from that of the Team.

The connection between sunspots and climate wasn’t first noted in 1976.

And if you had QUOTED MY WORDS, you would have noticed that I didn’t say it was first noted in 1976. I said:

Modern interest in the Maunder sunspot minimum was sparked by John Eddy’s 1976 publication of a paper in Science entitled “The Maunder Minimum”.

And if you’d read that and thought about it, you’d have realized that if I’m talking about “modern interest”, that surely there must have been earlier interest, duh

And if you’d bothered to read the links I provided, you’d notice that I had linked to Eddy’s actual paper, in which he goes over the earliest interest in detail, including the stuff that you are breathlessly trying to retail as your own dazzling insights.

But noooo … you want to point out how dumb I am and how brilliant you are, so you don’t do any of that …

You see why I have little time for random anonymous internet popups, sturgishooper? It’s because you guys are more than willing to shoot your mouth off about anything, because you know you’ll never have to take responsibility for your words.

I realize that even the most rudimentary research is anathema to you, but in seconds you could have found out who Tony B is. It seems that of all regular commenters and posters here, you’re the only one totally clueless as to the identity of Tony Brown.

Are you equally as ignorant of the identity of that other distinguished Brown, rgbatduke?

That someone is anonymous to you hardly is a basis for rejecting his inoffensive comments. For anyone that is but you.

My first impression is you are trying to match things too closely. If the sun’s output changes, there are any number of lag effects, coupled with ocean cycles, which means any review of past temperature data with the sun’s output is not going to match exactly.

I do think this is the problem above, and your problem in general with examining the sun as the driver of climate.

Thanks, thing, but “match things too closely”?

Look, I’m not the one that claims that the solar minima coincide closely with the temperature drops. I’m not the one claiming that there are 11-year cycles in the climate that match closely with solar cycles.

I’m just the one looking to see if it’s true … and so far there is very little support for the claims. So if you want to bitch about matching things too closely, go talk to the guys making the claims that they match closely, not me investigating the claims that they match closely.

What do you mean by modern? In every decade since the Maunders popularized Spörer’s work for the English-speaking world, their observations have been commented upon. You trash the history of science as willy-nilly as all other relevant fields, never bothering to do the least little bit of literature search, let alone actual substantive research.

I’m not a pop-up. I’ve commented here before on a variety of topics within my area of expertise. To me it appears that you have no area of expertise beyond applying totally inappropriate and badly executed mathematical operations to inadequate data sets cherry picked by you. Your posting and publishing constitute the antithesis of science. Yet you with unbridled hubris claim to be a “scientist”, while refusing steadfastly to practice the scientific method.

When have you ever taken responsibility for your unrelieved record of shameless error and prevarication? You help make skeptics a laughing stock, so do science no service. Quite the contrary.

sturgishooper says:
June 23, 2014 at 8:58 pmWhy don’t you let readers know when, why and how your current crusade to overturn perfectly good SSN counting systems began.
As per http://ssnworkshop.wikia.com/wiki/Home the 1st SSN workshop was held in September, 2011. The ‘why’ is explained in the Wiki [should you care to look]. And the SSN was not ‘perfectly good’.

And if you can, please distinguish your funding from that of the Team.
The ultimate funder is the US Taxpayer [i.e. you among others]

I realize that even the most rudimentary research is anathema to you, but in seconds you could have found out who Tony B is. It seems that of all regular commenters and posters here, you’re the only one totally clueless as to the identity of Tony Brown.

If a man wants to post here (or anywhere) anonymously, absent a really good reason to do otherwise, I respect his desire for anonymity. As a result, I make no attempt to find out who he actually is.

So you can stuff your nasty allegation that “rudimentary research is anathema” to me up your fundamental orifice. I decline to dig out a man’s secrets out of politeness, a subject regarding which you seem remarkably ignorant …

Willis Eschenbach: It turns out that this strong association of sunspot minima and temperature is a fairly recent development. Modern interest in the Maunder sunspot minimum was sparked by John Eddy’s 1976 publication of a paper in Science entitled “The Maunder Minimum”.

Well. In defense of tonyb, the “strong association” of which you wrote wasn’t that “recent”, unless now you are going to redefine “strong” or “recent”. And if “sparked” does not “attribute” “modern interest” to John Eddy, then you are writing in some language other than English. Your angry response to tonyb was unwarranted.

sturgishooper says:
June 23, 2014 at 9:16 pmThe SSN were all good as long as you took into account how they were counted.
The problem is that nobody did and almost nobody knew. We are rectifying that.

Your effort, however initially motivated by a desire to improve science, is part and parcel of the fundamentally corrupt campaign that is modern “climate science”. Sorry, but that’s the reality.
Ah, you finally showed your hand and dripping your agenda-driven venom.

It’s not digging out a secret. Tony Brown, like many here, posts through some conduit in which he already had an ID, so that he comes up as climatereason or tonyb. Many who do so make no secret as to who they are, again like Dr. Brown of Duke.

“Digging” would have taken you mere seconds, literally, and I’m sure, if I may speak for him, that Tony Brown would not have felt in the least violated by your having so searched. Interestingly, the Team pull no punches or make no bones about identifying him in their attacks on the excellent science he practices in reconstructing temperature to extend the CET further back in time.

Thanks for the two links, pochas, but was there some part of the following that was unclear?

Next, please don’t fall into the trap of considering climate model results as data. The problem, as I have shown in a number of posts, is that the global temperature outputs of the modern crop of climate models are nothing but linear transforms of their inputs. And since the models include solar variations among their inputs, those solar variations will indeed appear in the model outputs. If you think that is evidence for solar forcing of temperature … well, this is not the thread for you. So no climate model results, please.

Willis, two pieces of advice based on the unfortunate above record, which I presume resulted from the sort of ‘bad hair day’ we all occasionally have, even if we no longer have hair.
1. Army rule of holes. If you are in one and wish to get out, stop digging. (Why did you continue digging today against your own fan base?)
2. Listening enables hearing. (Listening is very hard, but most Native Americans and all successful hunters eventually learn how to. I am the latter.) You are not listening to this unfortunate thread.

Sturgishooper you need to be brought up to date on ice core records of volcanic ash and sulfur deposits. The deposits that show up at both poles are significant in terms of global weather pattern variations. The largest volcanic eruption in the last 7000 years was in 1258, at the very beginning of what is known as the LIA. Further, the entire span of the LIA (considered to be 1280-1850 A.D. as the outer boundaries in the literature) was a period of exceptional volcanic activity. So I am not sure where you are getting your information but it certainly is not up to date.

Willis says:
“So if you want to bitch about matching things too closely, go talk to the guys making the claims that they match closely”

I can talk to these guys, but there is something here you should consider. It’s a classic ‘lost in translation’ problem. One person’s language and meaning doesn’t exactly match another.

Your efforts here have stumbled upon one of the major issues in climate science, and that is to be commended. The difference between statistical convenience and/or assumptions, as well as language and ‘lost in translation’ problems, and messy reality. As a field-based geologist for several decades, I have seen this very often.

When people say solar activity and temperature ‘match’, they are paraphrasing. You are quite right in pointing out statistical mismatches, but as a statistician, you may be missing the point. They don’t match, and you are quite right, but there are other factors involved which means this mess called climate science is not going to be resolved anytime soon. (Note: academics and statisticians generally hate ‘lag’ effects, because they are taught within both mathematics and statistics to rectify/ignore/’fix’ these from day 1. What if they don’t need ‘fixing’?).

The best example I can think of in climate science, is the example I gave on 20th century warming. Alarmists are ADAMENT late 20th century warming doesn’t match solar activity. They entirely fail to account for, or consider decadal lag effects, especially regarding ocean cycles. I saw a program where melting ice in Greenland lakes somewhere peaks something around March 21, a full 3 months after the summer solstice. And it is entirely solar driven. Go figure. If you want to match solar activity even in a season with melting ice, you can’t. Its a very simple concept, but completely ignored.

Prediction. Field based observations will win out in the end, with the sun being a/the major factor driving climate, including late 20th century warming. This understanding won’t come from statisticians. It’s happened before, geologists couldn’t prove either the age of the earth, or plate tectonics, statistically or otherwise, but their gut-based observations were on the money, verified eventually by better observations and better data. Field-based observations won in the end.

And yet the three coldest periods are all in solar minima, cycles 12-14 was a minima too.

You seem confused about cause and effect. At the end of the Dalton minimum, the temperature was well above what it was at the start … why?

And in both the Dalton and Maunder minima, the temperature started to rise well before the sunspots started to rise … why?

At the onset of the Dalton minimum, the temperature rose for a decade … why?

The fact that we see cold spells that coincide with minima does NOT mean that they are caused by the minima. If they were, I wouldn’t be asking “why” above.

You seem to think that because the Maunder minimum OCCURRED near the end of the Little Ice Age, it CAUSED the Little Ice Age. Nothing could be further from the truth. Any solar minimum that happened to occur during the LIA would have cold temperatures … so what?

As to the famous “Ulric Minimum” of cycles 12-14 … you’ll have to wait until it gets re-named by an official body before it enters into anyone’s calculations.

3) My information is at least as up to date as yours. Please show your work by which you determined that the LIA, ie c. AD 1350 to 1850, was a period of increased and sustained on a regular basis volcanism, statistically significantly greater in frequency and magnitude than during the preceding Medieval and following Modern Warm Period.

*Dating the LIA: the most common dates are AD 1350 to 1850, but NASA narrows it to 1550 to 1850. There was climatic deterioration after 1250 and famine in Europe during the first half of the 14th century, but these were associated with normal fluctuations toward the end of a warm period (same happens in reverse toward the end of cool periods, such as the LIA). And of course there are decadal ups and downs within centuries-long cool and warm periods.

With respect to Willis’ post, just the Maunder and Dalton. But no matter which definition you prefer, the Maunder and Dalton were cooler than the periods before, in between and after them.

The same is true for other minima, eg the Spörer, Wolf and Oort.

So far, the only information we have seen regarding the Sporer and Wolf minima is Figure 3, which totally disagrees with your claim. If you have other estimates of the temperature in say 1450-1560 during the Sporer minimum, please provide it.

In denying this connection, you’re setting yourself up against 200 years of science by the best scientists who studied the issue, starting with Herschel.

Please cite for us Herschel’s statements about the Sporer and Wolf minima … or any of the great sunspot minima, for that matter.

Finally, you are arguing that there is a 200-year scientific consensus on whether the Oort minimum caused cooler temperatures. If so, please provide your supporting evidence for such a claim.

Matthew R Marler says:
June 23, 2014 at 8:43 pm
————————————
“I wouldn’t rule that out, but there isn’t the supporting/testing evidence either. Or is there?”

First off there are simple empirical experiments you can run demonstrating the spectral variance / depth of absorption issue with selective surfaces –
Illuminate both blocks with equal SW and block A runs far hotter. However illuminate with equal wattage of IR and both run at the same temperature. A clear demonstration as to why spectral variance is critical to calculating ocean temps. Treating the oceans as a “near blackbody” effected only by a 0.1% variance in TSI is demonstrably wrong, and given this engineering knowledge of selective surfaces is decades old, inexcusable.

While the paper is modelling based and is largely concerned with biological turbidity, the physical mechanisms proposed would have similar effects to solar variance in strength of UV penetrating to depth. It is notable that the authors understood the difference between “near blackbody” and “selective surface” and thereby why the depth of absorption was critical to heat content and circulation patterns.

Thirdly, we know that surface UV variance in the last 3 decades has been two orders of magnitude greater than TSI variance.

Finally, we are building a record of ocean temps below 100m via ARGO. However this will take time.

The bottom line is this – if you don’t understand how the sun heats the oceans, you can’t understand the effect of solar variability on the oceans. “near blackbody” + “TSI” = garbage.

That is an excellent question, worthy of and doing credit to a great specialist of your caliber.

The easy answer is that I can do it when looking at different historical data sets or counts, so why can’t anyone else? But admittedly that doesn’t suffice. I’d even support your general goal of agreeing on a single count system, while quibbling with the specific one your group is trying to impose.

What does suffice, IMO, is the fact that understanding how the Wolf number is or was derived allows a careful scientist to make valid comparisons.

Let me state the obvious Willis. You are clearly much better at this and smarter than I am. But just like with your fracking obsession …

A “fracking obsession”? Any man who starts a comment by accusing another man of having an “obsession” without providing a single scrap of evidence is not worth talking to. That’s just mudslinging, not interested, thanks.

I can not find the WUWT post but I won’t let that stop me.
As the magnetic fields that work together to cause the sunspots weaken, their interactive efficiency becomes less. At that time the number of sunspots reduces faster than the output of the sun reduces.
So during a grand minimum the sun may be able to decrease and increase output without changing the number of sunspots.
Is there a sun influenced isotope chart?
Also what were the volcanoes and the PDO doing?
I think the sun and orbit are the least strong but most persistent enforcers of climate change.
And there is rarely just one answer.

Exactly so. Willis Eschenbach has been presenting a series of focused analyses, testing particular hypotheses with respect to specific relevant data, and finding that certain common claims about solar variation and Earth climate response have been promoted and disseminated without much evidentiary support. Maybe one day he’ll delve into Beryllium isotopes or changes in magnetic field strength, but today we have sunspot minima and a particular climate index that turns out to be pretty independent. It is worth while to absorb these points.

Thanks, Matthew. Regarding 10Be, see my post here. Short version? 10Be is far from what it is claimed to be, and the Greenland and Antarctic ice core 10Be records don’t even agree with each other.

sturgishooper says:
June 23, 2014 at 9:48 pmWhat does suffice, IMO, is the fact that understanding how the Wolf number is or was derived allows a careful scientist to make valid comparisons.

That fact is that no-one alive has done this, except the experts now re-evaluating the SSN. And nobody [except the observers in Locarno] I know of, knew that the Wolf number was artificially inflated by 20% in 1947. Did you know this? I discovered this in a few years back, e.g. http://www.leif.org/research/SIDC-Seminar-12Jan.pdf which gave the impetus to the SSN-workshops. What we are doing is simply providing the understanding needed to use the Wolf Number correctly.

sturgishooper says:
June 23, 2014 at 9:23 pmIt’s not true that nobody did.
If so, can you tell me who did? otherwise you cannot make the claim.
So you cannot tell.

Your venomous agenda-driven rearguard resistance to divulging to researchers the flaws that have been uncovered in the historical SSN is understandable [there are many just like you], but is hardly science, regardless of what you say.

Not also the 11 year cycle recovered in these synchronized data. Had you done a rudimentary literature search, you’d have found this and so many other studies showing your pet theories to be fantastic delusions. Why anyone here or anywhere else pays the least heed to your garbage (to use your favorite term for the work of those who dare to disagree with you), I don’t know, but have my suspicions. I prefer drivel to garbage:

Cosmogenic 10Be in polar ice cores is a primary proxy for past solar activity. However, interpretation of the 10Be record is hindered by limited understanding of the physical processes governing its atmospheric transport and deposition to the ice sheets. This issue is addressed by evaluating two accurately dated, annually resolved ice core 10Be records against modern solar activity observations and instrumental and reanalysis climate data. The cores are sampled from the DSS site on Law Dome, East Antarctica (spanning 1936–2009) and the Das2 site, southeast Greenland (1936–2002), permitting inter-hemispheric comparisons. Concentrations at both DSS and Das2 are significantly correlated to the 11-yr solar cycle modulation of cosmic ray intensity, rxy=0.54rxy=0.54 with 95% CI [0.31; 0.70], and rxy=0.45rxy=0.45 with 95% CI [0.22; 0.62], respectively. For both sites, if fluxes are used instead of concentrations then correlations with solar activity decrease. The strength and spectral coherence of the solar activity signal in 10Be is enhanced when ice core records are combined from both Antarctica and Greenland. The amplitudes of the 11-yr solar cycles in the 10Be data appear inconsistent with the view that the ice sheets receive only 10Be produced at polar latitudes. Significant climate signals detected in the 10Be series include the zonal wave three pattern of atmospheric circulation at DSS, rxy=−0.36rxy=−0.36 with 95% CI [−0.57; −0.10], and the North Atlantic Oscillation at Das2, rxy=−0.42rxy=−0.42 with 95% CI [−0.64; −0.15]. The sensitivity of 10Be concentrations to modes of atmospheric circulation advises caution in the use of 10Be records from single sites in solar forcing reconstructions.

Close enough to the 11 of the sunspot cycle for the running mean of the temperature to have an imposed “11” cycle.

So let’s build a running mean from primes. 3*5*7*7 = 735, no 11. However 3*7 is close to 2*11, so I’ll also take out a 7. I’m also adding endpoints for whole years and starting from the shortest dataset.

I did not know this until I read your work, but that doesn’t mean that people didn’t know previously that there were problems with the Wolf number.

As I said, my agenda is science. I don’t think that your current efforts are an improvement on the data sets that you hope to overturn. IMO they’re worse, but I would welcome a valid revision of Wolf number or any previous attempt to make a consistent actual or reconstructed count of SSN.

To clarify, I’m not fighting a rearguard action against divulging problems. I support drawing attention to the limits of past SSN counting systems. I do however object to the scheme which you wish to substitute and which your team is intent upon imposing, complete with sanctions upon heretics who resist reeducation. I guess I have failed to make that clear.

Are we enabling our own home grown Nuccitelli? Just for example, take the reply above….

Regarding 10Be, see my post here. Short version? 10Be is far from what it is claimed to be, and the Greenland and Antarctic ice core 10Be records don’t even agree with each other.

Must I really wade through another cranky post? If you don’t understand it, W, that doesn’t mean other people don’t. I noticed many years ago the Greenland and Antarctic cores didn’t agree. What you can’t deny is the Greenland core shows a Youger Dryas signal. That doesn’t happen by accident. What caused it is debatable. Now there’s where some good discussion can get interesting, but no, instead we have to slog though half-analysis and undergraduate charts.

Oh, crap. Now I’m getting cranky. Does that happen to everybody when they get older?

The Samalas volcano in Indonesia was identified as the most likely candidate for the 1257 volcanic event recorded in ice cores at both poles.

From the abstract:

“Drawing upon compelling evidence from stratigraphic and geomorphic data, physical volcanology, radiocarbon dating, tephra geochemistry, and chronicles, we argue the source of this long-sought eruption is the Samalas volcano, adjacent to Mount Rinjanion Lombok Island, Indonesia. At least40 km3 (dense-rock equivalent) of tephra were deposited and the eruption column reached an altitude of up to 43 km. Three principal pumice fallout deposits mantle the region and thick pyroclastic ﬂow deposits are found at the coast, 25 km from source. With an estimated magnitude of 7, this event ranks among the largest Holocene explosive eruptions. Radiocarbon dates on charcoal are consistent with a mid-13th century eruption. In addition, glass geochemistry of the associated pumice deposits matches that of shards found in both Arctic and Antarctic ice cores, providing compelling evidence to link the prominent A.D. 1258/1259 ice core sulfate spike to Samalas. We further constrain the timing of the mystery eruption based on tephra dispersal and historical records, suggesting it occurred between May and October A.D. 1257.

It turns out that this strong association of sunspot minima and temperature is a fairly recent development. Modern interest in the Maunder sunspot minimum was sparked by John Eddy’s 1976 publication of a paper in Science entitled “The Maunder Minimum”.

Well. In defense of tonyb, the “strong association” of which you wrote wasn’t that “recent”, unless now you are going to redefine “strong” or “recent”. And if “sparked” does not “attribute” “modern interest” to John Eddy, then you are writing in some language other than English. Your angry response to tonyb was unwarranted.

Since Eddy was only able to find a few articles in obscure journals to reference as prior art regarding the association of solar minima and temperature, what are you calling “strong”?

And “sparked an interest” does NOT mean “the idea is attributed to”. It means that following the publication of the article, it was cited and discussed and the ideas became much more prevalent. It doesn’t mean that the author originated the idea, it just means that he sparked more interest in an existing idea.

Finally, tonyb claimed that it was a mistake that I had “attributed it to eddy or lamb” without having the common decency to quote my words. Where is he claiming that I attributed it to Lamb, for example? I said nothing of the sort about Lamb, I defy you to find anything like that. It’s just tonyb’s fantasy, and I’m tired of being asked to defend myself against some fool’s fantasy about something I neither said nor implied.

Not only that, but you, without checking to see if I’d said a single word about Lamb and the association of solar minima and temperature, are now here to defend tonyb’s fantasy about Lamb … you sure you want to do that? Because I assure you, defending his bs is not a plus for your reputation …

Sorry, Matthew, but I’ve had it up to here with accusations that I’ve made a mistake that are coming from anonymous jerks who can’t be bothered to quote my words after being requested over and over to please do so. And well-meaning, decent folks like you who for some unknown reason blindly jump in to defend someone else’s uncited fantasy accusation that I’ve made a mistake just make it worse. Didn’t your momma ever tell you to stay out of bar-room fights until you understand the issues?

sturgishooper says:
June 23, 2014 at 10:15 pmI do however object to the scheme which you wish to substitute
The revised SSN [or Wolf Number as we shall call it] is based on careful comparisons and review by many experts, so is forced upon us by the data. We have little choice or wiggle room.
You can only object if you have done a similar analysis and thereby come to a different result [which we would love to see]. If not, your reaction is just agenda-driven inertia based on ignorance.

Willis,
Nice investigative work. Here are three things I have picked up over time that might give you further territory to explore on this subject. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of these points because I have not looked up the data myself.

1. The sunspot population apparently follows Earth’s seasons with the local maximums occurring near the equinoxes.

2. Surface water flow rates follow the inverse of the sunspot cycles delayed by 44 years.

3. The sunspots may correlate with higher temperature because they both arise from the same mechanism, not because sunspots cause the higher temperatures. The Little Ice Age did occur and the sunspot minimums occurred during the Little Ice Age. That in itself may be 100% correlation if the time scales for both to exhibit themselves are on the order of the length of the LIA. Or, it may be just coincidental.

“Digging” would have taken you mere seconds, literally, and I’m sure, if I may speak for him, that Tony Brown would not have felt in the least violated by your having so searched.

I’m sorry, but you may NOT speak for tonyb. He is quite able to speak for himself. He is also free to post under his own name if he wishes. Your fantasies about what he would feel are a meaningless sick joke. Obviously, he prefers being anonymous or he’d use his name.

As to how much time it would take to unearth his secrets, why on earth would this be a concern to me? You seem to have missed the point entirely. I am NOT INTERESTED in piercing anyone’s veil on anonymity, regardless whether it takes me five years or five seconds, and regardless whether or not you claim they wouldn’t mind in the slightest, honest, they wouldn’t.

Like I said … you don’t seem to have even the most primitive understanding of respect for someone’s desire to be anonymous.

By Wolf Number, I meant the method of counting before the Svalgaard team which they’re trying to change.

lsvalgaard says:
June 23, 2014 at 10:27 pm

IMO the problem is not that you’re forced to a new approach, but that you’re trying to force your approach on others. Maybe too glib, but IMO, your desire for a new approach is scientific, but your attempt to force a consensus on your colleagues is not only unscientific but antiscientific. If your approach is correct, time will show it so. Science advances by the death of adherents of the previous paradigm. I’m not sure that your answer to the problems which you have IMO correctly identified is the right answer.

For example, Galileo, like you, made important contributions, but was wrong in other important ways. He at least did not want to, or at least lacked the power to, enforce his new views on others. Quite the opposite. Only the evidence could show him right or wrong, as it did in time both ways.

Willis, two pieces of advice based on the unfortunate above record, which I presume resulted from the sort of ‘bad hair day’ we all occasionally have, even if we no longer have hair.
1. Army rule of holes. If you are in one and wish to get out, stop digging. (Why did you continue digging today against your own fan base?)
2. Listening enables hearing. (Listening is very hard, but most Native Americans and all successful hunters eventually learn how to. I am the latter.) You are not listening to this unfortunate thread.

Rud, was there some part of me saying QUOTE MY WORDS that escaped your notice? I see that you are accusing me of something, but I have no idea what it is. Metaphors about “digging holes against my own fan base” mean nothing. Who in my “fan base” am I “digging against”, and exactly how am I doing that?

You seem to be hard of reading today, so read my lips—if you disagree with something I said, quote it or go away. I won’t deal with that kind of vague handwaving and unreferenced, unclear claims.

It should be a concern of yours, since you sought to denigrate him as anonymous, just as your engage in ad hominem against all who dare question your obiter dicta. If Tony Brown wants to object to my allegedly taking his full name in vain, I hope he will. But as usual, you’re trying to divert attention from your substantive failings with a side issue.

sturgishooper says:
June 23, 2014 at 10:37 pmIMO the problem is not that you’re forced to a new approach, but that you’re trying to force your approach on others.
We are not forced to a new approach. We have discovered flaws in the historical data and are correcting them. The flaws are clear, obvious, for all to see and understand and are easy to correct. In this sense, if we wish to do science we are forced to correct the flawed record.

Science advances by the death of adherents of the previous paradigm.
No, by overwhelming new data or insights, e.g. Quantum Mechanics, Plate Tectonics, Expanding Universe, …

The best example I can think of in climate science, is the example I gave on 20th century warming. Alarmists are ADAMENT late 20th century warming doesn’t match solar activity. They entirely fail to account for, or consider decadal lag effects, especially regarding ocean cycles. I saw a program where melting ice in Greenland lakes somewhere peaks something around March 21, a full 3 months after the summer solstice. And it is entirely solar driven. Go figure. If you want to match solar activity even in a season with melting ice, you can’t. Its a very simple concept, but completely ignored.

Climate scientists ignore lags? How many cross-correlations have you seen me do, which explicitly include lags? And a cross-correlation of your example solar and melting ice will indeed show the match.

Or what about my analysis of the models, showing that they are simply a lagged transform of the inputs?

And of course, any spectral analysis includes lags, because it is looking at cycles whether they are lagged or not … i.e. a lagged 11-year cycle is still an 11-year cycle. So those analyses also include lags.

The claim that climate scientists “completely ignore” lags is totally untrue. Here’s a typical statement, one of literally thousands in the myriad of studies:

Unlike the marine records, speleothem data sets are not ‘tuned’, and their independent chronology offers opportunities to critically assess leads and lags in the climate system, that in turn can provide important insights into forcing and feedback mechanisms.

Lags are “completely ignored” in climate science? Don’t make me laugh. They are a major focus of study, nothing happens instantly, and climate scientists are well aware of that.

How reliable are the start and end dates of the various minima (Dalton and Maunder in particular)?
Shifting the start/end dates around could change your interpretation of the data, so I was wondering how precise those dates actually are? i.e. what’s the +/- on the dates?

Good question, JPG. They are said to start at the minimum before the first low sunspot cycle, and end at the minumum after the last low cycle. As a result, the +/- is more accurate in modern times, less so in the 1700s, and pretty sketchy prior to 1600.

sturgishooper says:
June 23, 2014 at 10:37 pmI’m not sure that your answer to the problems which you have IMO correctly identified is the right answer.
Your uncertainty may just be ignorance, so let us try the Socratic Method:
1) If you discover that a single observer [out of dozens] inflates his count by counting bigger spots with a higher weight than others [e.g. a big spot is counted as five spots], would you not undo his inflation by reverting to count all spots singly in order to align him with all the other observers?

So you now have walked back from “the largest eruption in the last 7000 years” to “one of the largest”. Big difference. It still pales against Tambora.

I have no problem with a VEI 7 eruption around 1258, although the paper you cited hardly settles the issue. There have been at least two VEI 7s since then, ie Tambora (~150 cubic kilometers of tephra) and the also enigmatic 1452/53 event (36 to 96 km^3), both estimated about equal to or larger than the presumed Indonesian 1258 eruption (40 km^3).

But what does a VEI 7 at c. 1258, if it happened, have to do with the start of the Little Ice Age about a century later?

I was just quoting you, who said that “The revised SSN [or Wolf Number as we shall call it] is based on careful comparisons and review by many experts, so is forced upon us by the data. We have little choice or wiggle room” and that “The flaws are clear, obvious, for all to see and understand and are easy to correct. In this sense, if we wish to do science we are forced to correct the flawed record.” If my use of “approach” was the wrong word, I apologize.

lsvalgaard says:
June 23, 2014 at 10:54 pm

If you want to get Socratic on my ass, then how about this?

If I want to stop counting bigger spots with a higher weighting than others, should I then also count single large spots the same as single small spots, rather than trying to find a proper weighting system?

(Asking questions in this way is actually Sophistic, not Socratic, but you can be forgiven for making the same mistake as law schools.)

I freely admit that compared to your knowledge and understanding of sun spots, I am ignorant, but that’s beside the point as long we both know what we’re talking about. Which maybe I don’t.

The 200 year old observation is the connection between sunspots and climatic data.

No, it’s the claimed connection between the 11-year sunspot cycle and climate that is 200 years old. The connection between long-term sunspot minima and temperature, which is what this post is about, is more modern. Surely you can see that these are different subjects, which is why one is called “11-year sunspot cycles” and the other is called “solar minima”.

sturgishooper says:
June 23, 2014 at 11:07 pm
If I want to stop counting bigger spots with a higher weighting than others, should I then also count single large spots the same as single small spots, rather than trying to find a proper weighting system?
If everybody else [including Wolf] counted single large spots the same as single small spots [i.e. regardless of size] then to maintain a homogeneous dataset over time you must do just that. The proper weighting scheme to be compatible with the rest of the historical record is no weighting.

sturgishooper says:
June 23, 2014 at 11:07 pmIf I want to stop counting bigger spots with a higher weighting than others, should I then also count single large spots the same as single small spots, rather than trying to find a proper weighting system?
If everybody else [including Wolf] counted single large spots the same as single small spots [i.e. regardless of size] then to maintain a homogeneous dataset over time you must do just that. The proper weighting scheme to be compatible with the rest of the historical record is ‘no weighting’.

Regarding agreement between the poles, as usual, you could not possibly be more wrong.

QUOTE MY WORDS, I’m reluctant to guess what you are talking about. But on the off chance you are talking about the correlation between the Greenland and Antarctic 10Be, run the numbers yourself and report your results. I’ve done that and linked to it above, including links to the datasets so you can’t complain on that regard … so where’s your calculation of the correlation?

lsvalgaard says:
June 23, 2014 at 11:15 pmThe proper weighting scheme to be compatible with the rest of the historical record is ‘no weighting’.
To continue with Socrates: do you agree with the above?
If so, should we not reduce the lone observers count to compensate for the overcount?

Hoser, if you want a man to pay attention to you and respond to your objections, don’t start your very first comment with a snarky insult. It marks you clearly as a man looking for a fight rather than a discussion. And I don’t have time to faff around with anonymous internet popups who are looking for a fight rather than a discussion, not enough hours in the day to screw around with jerks like that.

If I were looking for an indicator to relate weather to the human experience, I would look at the Growing Degree Days.

Thanks, Terry. If you have a citation to a dataset, I’m happy to look at it.

w.
Willis: It is a relatively recent number. It may be possible to tease an approximation out of old to ancient records of crop prices and volumes. It also does not account for drought. Does this suggest tree rings from the breadbasket? (wink) I know of no index, and creating it would be tedious and time consuming. I am not a volunteer. The historic record shows the ebb and flow of the ancient societies.

Each important crop has a Minimum Degree Days number for ripening. The number eliminates anomalies, highs, lows, averages and focuses on the warmth needed to produce a crop. It also eliminates any consideration of winter.

The LIA and crop success are, I suspect, very related. The people could tolerate cold winters if the crops, and food, were abundant. H.H.Lamb notes evidence of retreat from higher elevations and colder growing temps.

Your quest shall be forever hindered by a lack of records unless you resort to the ancient food and drought records. They are not accurate to within one hundredth degree of anything, but they are accurate for living conditions.
Regards:
Terry

Thanks, Leif. Near as I can tell, sturgishooper just makes things up if he doesn’t know them. Gotta say, though, that his conspiracy theories about the evil scientists who are working to distort the sunspot numbers are hilarious.

Oh, well … I suppose that as long as he keeps a couple spare rolls of tinfoil on hand it will work out all right …

Matthew R Marler writes “I wouldn’t rule that out, but there isn’t the supporting/testing evidence either. Or is there?”

No, its missing evidence and that alone doesn’t support the argument that the sun impacts on the climate. What it does support, however, is the argument that we dont have enough information to rule out the sun as a climate changing force.

What caused the LIA? My guess is low solar irradiance. Pouillet measured the solar irradiance with a pyrheliometer in 1838 and got a value of 1228 W/m^2 solar constant. Lower than current value of 1361 W/m^2. This translates to -33 W/m^2 TOA radiative forcing. Enough to cause 6 C cooler temperature.

What caused the MWP? My guess is thermohaline circulation. It transports heat to the polar regions and has a cycle time of about 1,000 years. Roman Warm Period occurred ca. 40 AD and MWP ca. 1000 AD. A thousand year interval of warm Greenland and Northern Europe. Places at or near the north polar region.

It should be a concern of yours, since you sought to denigrate him as anonymous …

WHAT should be a concern of mine? What are you babbling about now? Are you truly too stupid to QUOTE MY WORDS?

Get back to me when you’re willing to quote whatever I said that has your panties in such a twist. I’m not going to try to guess what it was in my comment that you’re upset about, that’s a fool’s game.

CET shows nothing there’s not even a slight trend if you include latest data 2014http://www.climate4you.com/CentralEnglandTemperatureSince1659.htm

Say what? Each of those three datasets has a definite trend.

w.

I am not into the correlation argument, but the Summer 3 months is flat except for a 1995-2000 lift(centre a straight line on 15.5°).Winter definitely has an upward trend, that contributes to the Annual upward trend. Why ? I do not know, may involve more wind movement in Summer.

Thank you for an interesting analysis, but to me it seems to be a correlation, but the sunspots are delayed 2 -3 decades to the temperatures
.
Such phase shifts could be explained by physical behavior in the solar interior.
I mean, imagine that both the sunspot level and the temperatures on Earth are caused by some other mechanism in the Sun. This other mechanism may not be directly measurable here on the Earth.

Since we know that sunspots are governed by a quite long cycle, 22 years when counting the magnetic polarity, it would reasonable to assume that the time from that underlying mechanism take effect to the sunspots show up would also be quite long.

If this mechanism affect the temperatures without much delay there would then be a phase shift between temperatures and sunspots.

“71% of this planets surface is ocean. It does not absorb energy as a “near blackbody” but rather as a “selective surface”

Wrong. The best up to date measurements of ocean emissivity in the 8-14 μm range are 0.98 to 0.99. The 8-14 μm range is well-known because of the intense focus on sea surface temperature measurements from satellite. BTW 8-14 um is the longwave infrared a.k.a. “greenhouse effect.”

What caused the LIA? My guess is low solar irradiance. Pouillet measured the solar irradiance with a pyrheliometer in 1838 and got a value of 1228 W/m^2 solar constant. Lower than current value of 1361 W/m^2.

Pyrheliometer measurement specifications are subject to International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and World Meteorological Organization (WMO) standards. Comparisons between pyrheliometers for intercalibration are carried out regularly to measure the amount of solar energy received.

ISO was founded 1947, WMO in 1950. So obviously Pouillet wasn’t using today’s calibration standards. Intercalibration with others at that time wouldn’t help much if as a class they read lower than today’s precision instruments.

Without evidence of the accuracy of his instrument, the low reading may be disregarded.

He developed a pyrheliometer and made, between 1837 and 1838, the first quantitative measurements of solar constant. His estimate was 1228 W/m2, very close to the current estimate of 1367 W/m2. Using the wrong Dulong-Petit law he estimated the temperature of the Sun’s surface to be around 1800 °C. This value was corrected in 1879 to 5430 °C by Jožef Stefan (1835–1893).

The Maunder and the Dalton Minimums may be different beasts. The Maunder is unique in our observed history of the sun. Is there any good explanation for why it happened? The Dalton Minimum on the other hand may just be a natural variation in the sunspot cycle pattern. Would it even have a name if it didn’t coincide with the LIA? If the Maunder is different, we can’t say how it would have affected the climate without knowing how it was different — presumably it was not the lack of sunspots itself, since that is not established for the other times.

In case you missed it the planet has started to cool due to solar magnetic cycle 24. We can watch the cooling in real time with satellite data. Antarctic sea is in now setting at its highest level in ‘recorded’ history for every month of the year. The Greenland ice sheet has started to cool.

What Willis has discovered by using Lamb’s 1965 winter severity of London and Paris paper with no knowledge of local climate and the jet stream is how the jet stream changes when there are very, very, cold winters in the US. When there are very, very, cold winter temperatures in Canada and the Northern US states the jet stream (Rossby wave) is pulled down which due to the rotation of the earth results in the direction of winds in the London and Paris coming from the South-west rather than the west or North-west.

This is a very interesting paper that explains why the west coast of Europe is much warming than the east coast of the US (same latitude).

The Source of Europe’s Mild Climate
The notion that the Gulf Stream is responsible for keeping Europe anomalously warm turns out to be a myth

If you grow up in England, as I did, a few items of unquestioned wisdom are passed down to you from the preceding generation. Along with stories of a plucky island race with a glorious past and the benefits of drinking unbelievable quantities of milky tea, you will be told that England is blessed with its pleasant climate courtesy of the Gulf Stream, that huge current of warm water that flows northeast across the Atlantic from its source in the Gulf of Mexico. That the Gulf Stream is responsible for Europe’s mild winters is widely known and accepted, but, as I will show, it is nothing more than the earth-science equivalent of an urban legend.

The Maunder Minimum (A.D. 1645–1715) is a useful period to investigate possible sun–climate linkages as sunspots became exceedingly rare and the characteristics of solar cycles were different from those of today. Here, we report annual variations in the oxygen isotopic composition (δ18O) of tree-ring cellulose in central Japan during the Maunder Minimum. We were able to explore possible sun–climate connections through high-temporal resolution solar activity (radiocarbon contents; Δ14C) and climate (δ18O) isotope records derived from annual tree rings. The tree-ring δ18O record in Japan shows distinct negative δ18O spikes (wetter rainy seasons) coinciding with rapid cooling in Greenland and with decreases in Northern Hemisphere mean temperature at around minima of decadal solar cycles.

Thanks for your reply Willis. But isn’t there a difference between finding a significant 11-year cycle in the temperature data and a bigger picture? Do you actually mean that the variability of the sun does not affect the global temperatures at all? So you don’t like averaging. But what about accumulated departure from average, as used here by Jim Goodridge, to see the bigger picture:

If I use the same method on both TSI and temperatures, the picture is once again intriguing. When the graph is falling the measurements are less than average and opposite when it is rising. Both the sun and the temperatures data give the the same picture, and the turning points are at the same time. When the sun is below the average of activity for the period, so is the temperature.

(William: Yes. Solar magnetic cycle changes cause the cyclic warming and cooling of the planet and cause the abrupt climate changes. The regions of the planet that warmed (high latitude) is the same region that warmed in the last 70 years and the last 30 years.)

…We found 342 natural warming events (NWEs) corresponding to this definition, distributed over the past 250,000 years …. …. The 342 NWEs contained in the Vostok ice core record are divided into low-rate warming events (LRWEs; < 0.74oC/century) and high rate warming events (HRWEs; ≥ 0.74oC /century) (Figure). … ….The current global warming signal is therefore the slowest and among the smallest in comparison with all HRWEs in the Vostok record, although the current warming signal could in the coming decades yet reach the level of past HRWEs for some parameters. The figure shows the most recent 16 HRWEs in the Vostok ice core data during the Holocene, interspersed with a number of LRWEs. …. ….We were delighted to see the paper published in Nature magazine online (August 22, 2012 issue) reporting past climate warming events in the Antarctic similar in amplitude and warming rate to the present global warming signal. The paper, entitled "Recent Antarctic Peninsula warming relative to Holocene climate and ice – shelf history" and authored by Robert Mulvaney and colleagues of the British Antarctic Survey ( Nature , 2012, doi:10.1038/nature11391),reports two recent natural warming cycles, one around 1500 AD and another around 400 AD, measured from isotope (deuterium) concentrations in ice cores bored adjacent to recent breaks in the ice shelf in northeast Antarctica. ….

Greenland ice temperature, last 11,000 years determined from ice core analysis, Richard Alley’s paper. William: As this paper shows there the Greenland Ice data shows that have been 9 warming and cooling periods in the last 11,000 years.

‘Not being a mind reader, if a man posts here anonymously to me he is indeed anonymous. I have no way to know who the person posting as tonyb might be. If he wants to post under his own name, he’s free to do so. Until then, he’s anonymous to me, and will be treated as such.’

Willis, over the last 7 years I have made thousands of comments and written around 15 major articles, many of which have been carried here. I post these in my own name. I originally used tonyb as there were numerous Tony Brown’s blogging. I am hardly anonymous.

Each major article takes many months to research. ‘The Long slow thaw part one’ took 2 years and involved travel to various parts of the country as well as desk research. Part 2, which takes the record back to 1200AD at this stage, has taken three years of research which includes much detailed work at places like the Met office library and archive. I have spent my own time and money in researching crop records and other relevant material, and have had items translated from the original Latin scrolls and rediscovered old diaries.

The purpose of all this work is ultimately to try to point out the inaccuracies of the Hockey stick and its spaghetti derivatives. Whatever your opinion on Dr Mann, the HS is still believed at Government and educational level and it is to this market that my articles are increasingly aimed.

I have personally found that more influential doors are opened if you behave in a measured fashion and carry on a dialogue in a restrained and reasonable manner. . You choose polemics to make your points-that is fine. But please do not denigrate other people such as myself merely because our style is different.

I offered some information early on in this thread as I have a very good knowledge of the last 1000 years of climate and are trying to point out-in a different way to you-to those that dictate the climate debate that the climate is much more variable than they have believed. It is a battle I have had with such as the Met office where I was fortunate enough to meet up recently with David Parker who created the 1772 CET record. At the recent Exeter Climate Conference with IPCC reviewers I was fortunate enough to be able to ask a sceptical question (the only one) of Thomas Stocker and had a discussion with Richard Betts.

I am sorry that you appear to be the only person on this blog who does not know me.

We are natural allies for the most part as our aims are the same-to use science to find out more about the climate. Why you choose to misinterpret and attack me I have no idea. .

The Maunder and the Dalton Minimums may be different beasts. The Maunder is unique in our observed history of the sun. Is there any good explanation for why it happened?

The Sun is a messy place. It has gone along on its own for billions of years, and we try to find meaning in 11-year twitches because they are meaningful relative to our lifespans.

The Maunder Minimum may be unique since we figured out how to safely view the solar disk and started drawing the specks and counting them, but I doubt it is unique at all for the Sun. Likely such are regular occurrences.

The cyclic abrupt climate changes correlate with solar magnetic cycle changes and correlate with cyclic unexplained abrupt changes to the geomagnetic field. The glacial periods are terminated by a geomagnetic excursion which is interesting as a very, very rapid geomagnetic excursion is currently underway.

Has anyone looked at the Swarm data? Why the sudden interesting in the geomagnetic field?

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005AGUFMGP44A..02S
Historical observations document ~1100 km change in the position of the North Magnetic Pole (NMP) over the last century. This movement has accelerated over the last few decades to an astonishing 40 km/yr and along with the diminishing intensity of the dipole field has led to speculation of imminent reversal or excursion.

http://cio.eldoc.ub.rug.nl/FILES/root/1999/QuatSciRevvGeel/1999QuatSciRevvGeel.pdf
“The role of solar forcing upon climate change”
When solar activity is high, the extended solar magnetic field sweeps through interplanetary space, thereby more effectively shielding the Earth from cosmic rays and reducing the production of 14C. Low solar activity lets more cosmic rays enter the Earth’s atmosphere, producing more 14C. So the 14C record is a good proxy for the solar radiant output (Bard et al., 1997).
However, explaining the observed changes in 14C concentration by production-rate variations alone is too simple an assumption, the more so when rapid 14C concentration changes appear to be coincident with significant changes in climate.
However, if we observe sudden, major 14C increases like the ones starting at c. 850 cal. BC and at c. 1600 AD (about 20 per mil), it is hard to imagine any change in the global carbon cycle that can bring about such a drastic fast change, simply because there is no reservoir of carbon with higher 14C concentration available anywhere on Earth. Even a sudden stop of the upwelling of old carbon-containing deep water could not cause the sudden (within decades) 14C concentration increases that are documented in the dendrochronological records. So, if we observe that such a sudden 14C increase, which must be caused by a production increase, is accompanied by indications for a change towards colder or wetter climate, this may indicate that solar forcing of the climate does exist. In theory, increased production of cosmogenic isotopes can also have a cause of cosmic origin such as a nearby supernova (Sonnett et al., 1987). We consider this scenario unlikely, and note here that events such as the 850 cal. BC peak are present in the dendrochronological curve with a periodicity of about 2400 years (Stuiver and Braziunas, 1989; see below).

Dr. Strangelove says:
June 24, 2014 at 12:13 am
————————————
“Wrong. The best up to date measurements of ocean emissivity in the 8-14 μm range are 0.98 to 0.99.”

I’m not sure you understand the difference between “near blackbody” and “selective surface”. I have a comment trapped in moderation that has the relevant empirical experiment.

As to the IR emissivity of water, this is just one factor in determining how it reacts as a selective surface. For selective surfaces, UV/SW absorption and IR emission can have different values, and for water they most certainly do.

IR emissivity values for water above 0.9 are what should be used for in situ IR measurement. This is an issue of “apparent emissivity”, covering holdraum and cavity effect. The “effective emissivity” is very different.

To determine effective emissivity, it is necessary to measure with all background IR eliminated. I have taken emissivity measurements of water under a cryo cooled “sky”. I can only cool down to -40C at this stage, but that has been enough to determine that the effective emissivity of liquid water is lower than 0.8. I suspect older texts showing 0.67 may be correct, but I do not have the equipment to reduce background to 3K.

Now what did climastrologists use for their “settled science” calculations? Effective or apparent emissivity? Again my claim “97% of climastrologists are assclowns” is substantiated…

As always Willis you are asking some good questions. However, I don’t think your attempt to reduce Maunder and Dalton minima to some sort of binary on/off representation is particularly helpful or informative.

Whenever I see this kind of coloured band on a graph I know someone is trying to lead my eye. Show me the data.

It seems that warming coming out of Dalton matches SSN fairly well, despite what your choice of end date suggests. If anything there is a discrepancy going into Dalton.

It’s clear that there is more to CET than slavishly following SSN but there does seem to be grounds for suggesting a long term link between the two. In fact I’d never realised how well it matched the 1960 dip, probably because I’ve always looked at rather misleading ‘global’ averages rather than CET.

It is also interesting to note that cooling following Mt Agung, El Chichon and Mt Pinatubo all coincide with solar minima. If anything Pinatubo can be associated with _warming_ towards the end of the decade, since the dip in temps is far less

William Astley says:
What Willis has discovered by using Lamb’s 1965 winter severity of London and Paris paper with no knowledge of local climate and the jet stream is how the jet stream changes when there are very, very, cold winters in the US. When there are very, very, cold winter temperatures in Canada and the Northern US states the jet stream (Rossby wave) is pulled down which due to the rotation of the earth results in the direction of winds in the London and Paris coming from the South-west rather than the west or North-west.
100%

This is the MAIN reason the climate alarmists, as well as the IPCC, dismiss late 20th century warming as being solar related. They even convinced David Attenborough of looming climate catastrophe over this very concept. Hansen has even invented some sort of equilibrium ‘constant’, in more recent years to explain it away. (I can’t figure it out, but it perhaps echoes Einstein’s cosmological constant). John Cook’s website got all in a befuddle over the very mention of solar heat lag, because they keep repeating ad infinitum that late 20th century warming wasn’t solar related, because it doesn’t match solar activity on a yearly basis.

Alec Rawls has a good post on this site which says exactly the same thing, most alarmist research papers (he makes a good list of them-Usoskin, Sherwood etc) on solar activity say exactly the same thing; they have not factored in multi-decadal solar heat lag in their dismissal of late 20th century warming (in collaboration with the positive PDO at the time). They assume equilibrium of the oceans and atmosphere with the sun is almost instantaneous, otherwise they have a real problem on their hands-late 20th century warming would not then be attributed mainly to C02.

Roy Spencer says a paper of his in recent years was rejected over exactly the same concept, the reviewer stated he wouldn’t even accept a modification because Spencer suggested that warming from the sun could have occurred after a lag in time and without the sun going up at exactly the same time-he describes this paper’s rejection, as well as mentioning the pot on the stove story-in his book The Great Global Warming Blunder.

Solar heat lag is a concept that repeatedly gets rejected because it opens up the major issue of what the IPCC relies on, most warming since the mid 20th century has to have been caused by c02 and not the sun because solar activity was not increasing at the time; if you have multi-decadal solar heat lag, this concept breaks down spectacularly. And the IPCC is then in a major befuddle.

When apparent climate cycles appear in the historical and geological record, why assume that there are single drivers like solar or CO2? What are the apparent congruences? Which of these factors or it’s absence remains in effect long enough to maintain a warm or cold cycle?

How does one explain away the coincidence factor? These minimums fall within the LIA, and whilst a direct cause and effect cannot be charted via severities and temps, could there be another mechanism at work? What about the sunspot activity in the ~100 year interludes between minimums, is there ‘normal’ sunspot activity?

Let us hypothesize the swing-set reason where your child’s demand for “higher!” requires you to push. When you don’t push momentum is lost. Maintaining an equilibrium is easier if there is a constant push. When you stop pushing and your child demand again to go higher, it takes more work to reach that equilibrium again (depending on weight and strength). Could it be that the sun/earth relationship has an equilibrium point? Has anyone tested that point? What if we stray to far above or below that point? Is it logical that the reason we don’t see an 11 year correlation is because it takes multiple cycles below ‘normal’ to create a decreased temp (with the opposite being true for increased temp)?

I’m in agreement with Rod Leman (The 2nd Comment in the list of Comments); and I quote: “rod leman says:
June 23, 2014 at 12:14 pm
Well, I would say that it is an incorrect analysis to compare temp with any single forcing. There are multiple forcings for Average Global Temp and to make a logical comparison of Temp vs the Solar Intensity you have to adjust the temp graph to EXclude other temp forcings like atypical volcanic activity, El Nino/La Nina, etc.”

Many folks have been alarmed or annoyed by fabricated visions of Warming. It takes but one 24 hour cycle for everyone to realize that the Sun affects temperature. The Sun is Earth’s Warmest neighbor. However, it’s severe Cold which gravely harms Life – and Cold also creates Drought. Historically, extinctions of Life are associated with Asteroid/Volcanic Activity .. which significantly block the Sun’s radiation for extended periods of Time – causing Earth’s Temps to swiftly plummet as if the Sun Itself were turned off. Cold Kills. Dinosaurs and more (upwards of 90% of all Life’s species) were wiped out at the K-T boundary of 65.5 million years ago. Two catastrophic events occurred at that time: A) The massive Chicxulub/Yucatan Asteroid and B) The very massive volcanic Deccan Flats event in India. THE POINT? Yes, Earth’s Climate is not only affected by the Sun.

If you are talking CET you are talking AMO. Knudsen et al 2014 is a good paper claiming external forcing of the AMO. They find it interesting that their break off point for finding good correlations is 1775 when comparing the AMO to solar and volcanic forcing. I’m not sure how it would look if combined and scaled with the reconstruction of Gulf Stream transport Lund et al 2006 which goes from fairly flat to a positive trend at about this time.

“71% of this planets surface is ocean. It does not absorb energy as a “near blackbody” but rather as a “selective surface”

Wrong. The best up to date measurements of ocean emissivity in the 8-14 μm range are 0.98 to 0.99. The 8-14 μm range is well-known because of the intense focus on sea surface temperature measurements from satellite. BTW 8-14 um is the longwave infrared a.k.a. “greenhouse effect.”

Typical of you to talk emissivity when Konrad talks Absorption, can’t you even read what he has said?

And the Sun doesn’t rule the heating. Hmmm. As far as I am concerned, you can turn the furnace back in the house, slosh the water in the indoor pool back and forth until hell freezes over, and you are not going to warm the house. Yes, the Sun DOES rule the temperature, we just don’t know the exact way how it does it.

Reason for the CET getting in and out of phase with the SNN envelope is likely due to the fact that the CET is equally affected by two major variables N. Atlantic SST (warming) and Icelandic Low atmospheric pressure system (cooling).
Although they exist along each other, they run with slightly different multidecadal periods (based on data since 1860s).

willis
You said
“As you can see, there is very little support for the “solar minima cause cool temperatures” hypothesis in the CET.”

I agree with you . I think there is perhaps more support for the cycles of North Atlantic ocean SST being a factor behind the cool CET temperatures during past major solar minima .Bob Tisdale demonstrated a 65-70 year Atlantic ocean SST cycle between 1880 and 2010 .If we extend a 70 cycle back,, troughs in this cycle correspond with low CET temperature or troughs and they just happen to also be during major solar minima .

Here are periods when North Atlantic SST was in the cool mode using a 70 year cycle

“Gosh, I didn’t know that, Ulric. What is the name of that minimum, so I can refer to it in future?

Or are we supposed to call it the “Ulric Minimum”, after the first person I’ve heard refer to it as a “solar minimum””

It is occasionally referred to as the Gleissberg Minimum.

“You seem confused about cause and effect. At the end of the Dalton minimum, the temperature was well above what it was at the start … why?”

On the contrary, you were confused into thinking that “there is very little support for the “solar minima cause cool temperatures” hypothesis in the CET.””, and you are confused about how long Dalton is, it not does reach to 2030 by any means. The start of Dalton is actually SC5 from 1798, and the coldest run of years are from 1807 to 1817.

“You seem to think that because the Maunder minimum OCCURRED near the end of the Little Ice Age, it CAUSED the Little Ice Age. Nothing could be further from the truth. Any solar minimum that happened to occur during the LIA would have cold temperatures … so what?”

Nothing could be further from the truth, the LIA would not exist without the solar minima that occurred through it. And Maunder was not near the end.

“As to the famous “Ulric Minimum” of cycles 12-14 … you’ll have to wait until it gets re-named by an official body before it enters into anyone’s calculations.”

I can plot that the next one starts in the 2090’s, and will last 4 solar cycles, I can name it the Lyons Minimum.

Willis Mosher Pamela
You all seem happy to ignore the solar activity – climate connection referred to in my earlier comment.
“Check Figs 8 and 9 athttp://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2013/10/commonsense-climate-science-and.html
Here are some quotes.
“Furthermore Fig 8 shows that the cosmic ray intensity time series derived from the 10Be data is the most useful proxy relating solar activity to temperature and climate. – see Fig 3 CD from Steinhilberhttp://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/03/30/1118965109.full.pdf
NOTE !! the connection between solar “activity” and climate is poorly understood and highly controversial. Solar ” activity” encompasses changes in solar magnetic field strength, IMF, CRF, TSI ,EUV,solar wind density and velocity, CMEs, proton events etc. The idea of using the neutron count as a useful proxy for changing solar activity and temperature forecasting is agnostic as to the physical mechanisms involved……..
The trends in the neutron count over the last few solar cycles strengthens the forecast of coming cooling made from projecting the PDO and Millennial cycle temperature trends The decline in solar activity from 1990 (Cycle 22) to the present (Cycle 24) is obvious……..
Fig9
It has been estimated that there is about a 12 year lag between the cosmic ray flux and the temperature data. see Fig3 in Usoskin et alhttp://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2005ESASP.560…19U.
With that in mind it is reasonable to correlate the cycle 22 low in the neutron count (high solar activity and SSN) with the peak in the SST trend in about 2003 and project forward the possible general temperature decline in the coming decades in step with the decline in solar activity in cycles 23 and 24.
The value of the Steinhilber interpretations is indicated in the following link posted earlier by Sturgishooperhttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X12004748
“This suggests that studies which assimilate bipolar composite 10Be records in solar or cosmic ray
intensity reconstructions (e.g. Steinhilber et al., 2012), or variants,
such as the leading principal component of multiple records (e.g.
Muscheler et al., 2007b) are less likely to introduce spurious
climate-related signals than those assimilating 10Be records from
individual sites (e.g. Bard et al., 2000; Vonmoos et al., 2006;
Shapiro et al., 2011). Using multiple 10Be records in addition to
cosmogenic 14C (from tree rings), which has a very different
geochemical behaviour to 10Be, can help to further decouple the
climate signal from the 10Be record (e.g. Muscheler et al., 2007b;
Usoskin et al., 2009; Steinhilber et al., 2012”

lsvalgaard says:
“Solar activity now is on par was it was during 12-14, but the climate is not.”

I am not surprised, there was far less global warming in the 19th century so the global mean temp base line was lower, and the worst cold in this cycle will straddle the second half of SC24 and the first half of SC25, from 2016 to 2024, much like 1807 to 1817 in SC’s 5 & 6.

But something seem to happen in the 1980s….
=============
the two graphs diverge with the fall of the soviet union when thousands of weather stations across Russia went permanently off line. Remove a lot of cold stations and the potential exists to create an artificial warming, that cannot be explained by any other mechanism except CO2, because they only looked for CO2.

Ulric Lyons says:
June 24, 2014 at 6:57 amI am not surprised, there was far less global warming in the 19th century
Even if solar activity was nearly the same in the 19th century as in the 20th. So clearly the Sun is not involved. As you say: not surprising.

the CET clearly shows that during the latter part of both the Maunder and Dalton minima the temperatures warmed steadily
============
This only makes sense. During the latter part of the Maunder and Dalton minima, the minima was ending. Thus temperatures warmed. This would indicate the minimal follows a curve (sin/cos), not a step function (on/off).

Steven Mosher said:
“If you point to a purely local record ( like CET) then you’ve havent made the case.”

CET tracks the NAO really well, that’s not local, and the NAO tracks the short term solar variability far better than any global mean that is hugely damped, and with major negative feedbacks in the form of oceanic modes working in opposition to the solar signal.

… as does the legend on the graph as well as the linked provided under “…that is detailed here:”

“Mount Pinatubo erupted on June 15, 1991. It’s at 15°08’30″N so it is in the defined tropics band.

But then global temperatures dropped about 0.5°C for a bit. Your graph shows a bump, temperatures had a brief upward pulse. But longer term there was cooling, to about 2000 where the graph ends.”

My graph shows a “bump” because it’s temperature of the lower stratosphere ( TLS ) . Today you have learnt that volcanoes have the opposite effect on the stratosphere. They then take what looks like a definitive step down. That part is covered in more detail here:

“However as Eschenbach showed in Volcanic Disruptions in 2012, for global temperatures there was a quick recovery from the cooling.”

And one of the main reasons for that recovery is what I showed here. Changes in the transparency of the stratosphere leading to an additional 2 W/m2 making it into the tropical lower climate system.

If volcanoes cause a _temporary_ cooling of the extra-tropical regions, someone ought to be explaining why it warms up again. The orthodoxy pretend this is due to AGW. What I have shown here is that it is far too closely linked to aerosol density and the timing of volcanic eruptions.

3) Earth’s climate is dominated by negative feedbacks as evidenced by Earth’s relatively stable climate over millions of years.

4) Deep ocean currents have a tremendous impact on Earth’s climate as evidenced by the change three million years ago when volcanic activity in Central America connected NA & SA, changing those currents and leading to our current glacial/interglacial cycles.

Therefore, there are multiple drivers and multiple negative feedbacks that keep Earth’s climate relatively stable. Plus/minus 5K over ~300K mean Earth average temperature is very stable! You are looking for multiple harmonics in an extremely complex and dynamic system.

In conclusion, it is obviously the Sun. Take away the energy from the Sun, and we begin to freeze in 8+ minutes. However, that is only the primary driver and minor fluctuations in that primary driver are hidden by Earth’s dynamic systems responses. We simply don’t know enough to separate all the harmonics to see the true impact of minor variations in the Sun’s influence to determine the true impact of the Sun Spot cycles.

Willis,
I can create a temperature graph using random numbers, where the amplitude of the peaks drop exponentially over time from +/- 4.0 to +/- 0.5 from 1700 to 2020. If I then filter this data set (by decade say) I will see significant peaks and troughs (the period being a function of filter length) where amplitude is a function of “noise”. This will produce hot and cold periods early on with amplitudes exceeding 1.0 degrees, but only small hot and cold periods later on with amplitudes less than 0.1 (not worthy of a LIA or MWP). All of this is caused by noise in the data and has nothing to do with solar activity. I can then correlate my fictitious graph with sun spot count and remarkably will find some correlation because the Maunder and Dalton Minimums correspond with the oldest parts of my data set. Also in the Figure 4 data set the time period at the Dalton Minimum corresponds exactly with an increase in noise of the temperature record, exactly where we would expect a major peak or trough to occur due to filtering alone. I have an Excel spread sheet showing this. The code is below:
assignfile(txt,’noise.txt’);
rewrite(txt);
for i := 1700 to 2020 do
begin
y:=(random(800)-400)/100.0; {generate a random time series from +/- 4.0 deg}
y:=y*exp(-(i-1700)/150); {make it exponentially decrease with TC = 150 yrs}
y:=y+(i-1700)/500; {add a linear trend for fun}
writeln(txt,i:10,y:10:4);
end;
closefile(txt); {now put that in Excel and filter}

Note that y first holds the random error (+/- 4 deg peak to peak).
Then y is scaled to decrease exponentially with a time constant of 150 years. This better matches the noise I see in the temperature record (Fig. 4).
Finally, I add a simple linear trend of approx. 0.2 deg / century to give an apparent (CAGW) trend upward.

If you want my data just ask Anthony for my email address and I’ll send you the code (Pascal) as well. But it’s pretty simple. You can see you get a couple of LIA’s and MWP’s with every run, earliest on in the data record.

If multi-decade changes in solar output are mostly manifested on earth as regional effects over time and translated to other heating and cooling factors and systems, including poorly described and monitored ones, then the story is incomplete rather than closed.

lsvalgaard says:
June 24, 2014 at 7:02 am
Ulric Lyons says:
June 24, 2014 at 6:57 am
“I am not surprised, there was far less global warming in the 19th century”

“Even if solar activity was nearly the same in the 19th century as in the 20th. So clearly the Sun is not involved. As you say: not surprising.”

To say, “So clearly the Sun is not involved.” is clearly an extreme over statement. As has been pointed out by other comments in this, and many other posts, temperature is undoubtedly a result of a complex mutivariate mix of causal variables, evidently nolinear, which may, indeed, be actually a chaotic mix. This does not mean that the Sun is “not involved”. Nor does it mean that its effect can be estimated in the linear fasion you regularly quote as 0.2 degrees or whatever. Better to simply say that its overall effect, in combination with the other variables with which it interacts, which magnify or reduce its effect, is presently not known.

Jim G says:
June 24, 2014 at 7:26 am“Even if solar activity was nearly the same in the 19th century as in the 20th. So clearly the Sun is not involved. As you say: not surprising.”
To say, “So clearly the Sun is not involved.” is clearly an extreme over statement.
It should be clear that what was meant was ‘in a major way’. There is no doubt that the Sun is involved at the 0.1 degree level, but that is not what the issue is.

Better to simply say that its overall effect, in combination with the other variables with which it interacts, which magnify or reduce its effect, is presently not known.
That is an extreme under statement. If not known, then the null-hypothesis must be that there is no major influence.

Hi Willis, Always a pleasure to absorp your writings. My best shot would be the increase/decrease in the rotation speed of the earth as measured by IERS. See this link: http://hpiers.obspm.fr/eop-pc/earthor/ut1lod/lod-1623.html. The reason (for me) is the link between the sun’s magnetic regime (reverse of the sun-spot regime, see the notch of david evans) and the rotation speed of the earth designated as LOD (length of day). The more active the sun’s magnetic field the slower the LOD and vice versa. A higher earth rotation speed may spread the colder air and water layers in ways different from a lower earth rotation speed; colder meaning more dense and hence (my opinion) more equitorial distribution under higher rotation speed conditions. In combination with your emerging atmospheric phenomena driven by temperature resulting cloud cover and distribution it may, I said may generate further insight.

The Sun is the major player providing radiation: consider it ROCK
Major Volcanic Activity severely blocks solar radiation: consider it PAPER
PAPER COVERS ROCK Sometimes – Significantly Lowering Earth’s Temperatures
The Sun is not the only player in the Earth’s Climate Game

I believe that the discussion has degraded to the level of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. We cant know even assuming they exist. That pretty sums up our knowledge of the climate. It changes and we really dont know why so arguing about what level of co2 or sunspots it takes to change the weather seems pointless.

lsvalgaard says:
June 24, 2014 at 7:36 am
Again, non-linear. Not known means just that, not that there is NO effect. Why is it so difficult to admit that we just have not yet figured out the relationships?

Leif would you care to comment on this quote from my 6:51 am post.
“Furthermore Fig 8 shows that the cosmic ray intensity time series derived from the 10Be data is the most useful proxy relating solar activity to temperature and climate. – see Fig 3 CD from Steinhilberhttp://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/03/30/1118965109.full.pdf
NOTE !! the connection between solar “activity” and climate is poorly understood and highly controversial. Solar ” activity” encompasses changes in solar magnetic field strength, IMF, CRF, TSI ,EUV,solar wind density and velocity, CMEs, proton events etc. The idea of using the neutron count as a useful proxy for changing solar activity and temperature forecasting is agnostic as to the physical mechanisms involved……..
The trends in the neutron count over the last few solar cycles strengthens the forecast of coming cooling made from projecting the PDO and Millennial cycle temperature trends The decline in solar activity from 1990 (Cycle 22) to the present (Cycle 24) is obvious……..:
(you might like to read the whole 6:51 comment and check the science direct link before replying)

Jim G says:
June 24, 2014 at 7:43 amAgain, non-linear. Not known means just that, not that there is NO effect.
It means that there is no evidence for an effect.

Why is it so difficult to admit that we just have not yet figured out the relationships?
Tell that to the sun-enthusiasts who invoke the stupid mantra ‘it’s the Sun, stupid’. If there is no evidence it is no surprise that we haven’t figured anything out, in which case the null-hypothesis stands.

Sturgis, the 1257-58 eruption is approximately twice the size of Tambora. You are not presenting yourself very well here. The 1257-58 event is considered to be the largest explosive volcanic event in the past 7000 years. All ice cores with records that extend through that time span demonstrate this signal as clearly being of greater magnitude than Tambora. While your thesis can be whatever you want it to be, at least get your facts straight. What is more concerning however, is that in my opinion it is evident from your comments you must be choosing not to.

“Estimates of its stratospheric sulfate load are around eight- and two-times greater than those of Krakatau in A.D. 1883 and Tambora in A.D. 1815, respectively (6), ranking it among the most significant volcanic events of the Holocene (7).”

Dr Norman Page says:
June 24, 2014 at 7:46 amLeif would you care to comment on this quote from my 6:51 am post.
“Furthermore Fig 8 shows that the cosmic ray intensity time series derived from the 10Be data is the most useful proxy relating solar activity to temperature and climate.
There is much evidence that the cosmic ray record is heavily influenced by the climate [if you need references it just shows that you are not current with the literature], so the ‘usefulness’ is highly dubious, in fact there is a fair amount of circular reasoning involved.

Willis wrote,”As you can see, there is very little support for the “solar minima cause cool temperatures” hypothesis in the CET.”

The graph you posted shows the Maunder Minimum as the coldest period in the graph. Take Leif Svalgaard’s presentation slide 31, bottom graph, “Total absolute magnetic fluxes on the Sun”. Place that graph over the CET graph, and there is what I would consider to be reasonable correlation. About as correlated as I would expect if the sun has some impact on temperature but with other things going on like changes in ENSO cycles and etc.

The problem here is that you are saying that there is no support or very little support for solar minima causing cool temperatures. I believe this statement is not correct. The correct statement is that there appears to be some correlation. Correlation is not causation. So, more research is needed to determine how solar minima cause temperature changes and to what degree it causes them (if it does).

Willis wrote, “…during both the Dalton and Maunder minima we see the temperature WARMING for the last half of the solar minimum. If the cause is in fact a solar slump … then why would it warm while the sun is still slumping?”

The answer is that determining the actual changes in heat in the oceans and on land is very difficult even today. Even today, the analysis is not very accurate. Locations on land are influenced by multidecadal changes in the PDO, AMO, NAO, AO and etc. If various of those cycles are in the “positive” mode, and there was a small change in the sun, it might take 20 years or more to see any major impact and that impact would vary depending on the location. Second, no one really knows what impact the sun has and what mechanism(s) are most responsible. For example, is it changes in ultraviolet radiation from the sun or is it galactic cosmic rays that have the most impact? How do they impact climate and how long does it take for the impact to be seen? The answers to those questions are unknown.

That said, your analysis is very interesting as always and I remain a Willis fan :). It also started a good discussion. Thanks for posting it.

Jim G says:
June 24, 2014 at 8:03 amUnless one continues to think in single variable linear terms, there is also no evidence for your 0.1 degree estimate of solar involvement.
When changes are small, everything is linear. There are claims of a solar cycle effect of the order of 0.1C, but it is true that that effect is so small that it is almost lost in the noise.
The 0.1C effect is what we expect solely because of the variation of TSI over a cycle. If that variation has no effect, then we need to explain why, and what is your explanation for the lack of effect?

Latitude says:
June 24, 2014 at 8:04 amThe null would be…..we don’t know
As Wittgenstein noted “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent”.

If not known, then the null-hypothesis must be that there is no major influence.

=====
Leif, thanks for a great example of word-smithing…..

The null would be…..we don’t know

NO! Absolutely not. You are rejecting the scientific method.

lsvalgaard is right and you are wrong.

The Null Hypothesis says it must be assumed a system has not experienced a change unless there is evidence of a change.

The Null Hypothesis is a fundamental scientific principle and it forms the basis of all scientific understanding, investigation and interpretation. Indeed, it is the basic principle of experimental procedure where an input to a system is altered to discern a change: if the system is not observed to respond to the alteration then it has to be assumed the system did not respond to the alteration.

In this case the assertion was that solar changes would affect climate. The affects on climate are not observed so the Null Hypothesis says the solar changes did not induce them to a discernible degree.

Of course, the Null Hypothesis may be wrong because other effects masked the investigated affects. It is always possible that the Null Hypothesis is wrong but the scientific method decrees that its indications must be accepted in the absence of other evidence.

Latitude says:
June 24, 2014 at 8:20 amRichard, you just said we don’t know enough to know if the null applies or not…….
…which was exactly my point
The null has to do with what we observe, not with what you think we know.

Richard, you just said we don’t know enough to know if the null applies or not…….
…which was exactly my point

I fail to understand why you think I said that. I wrote

In this case the assertion was that solar changes would affect climate. The affects on climate are not observed so the Null Hypothesis says the solar changes did not induce them to a discernible degree.
{snip}
It is always possible that the Null Hypothesis is wrong but the scientific method decrees that its indications must be accepted in the absence of other evidence.

I think it is high time that these discussions find someone who follows the course of events and to troubleshoot this, to date, the most difficult puzzles of which depends on many human activities.
I again, who knows the way, participants could help me by giving me the right address, I declare my evidence about the real causes of all events on the sun, and thus climate change which are the main indicators of the sunspot cycle. If this is read the owner and editor of this magazine, then I ask him to help me how to find the right place where I can express my proof of the solution of this enigma. These discussions can last for several hundred years, which again is not going to find a real and true causes of the sun. Maybe I’m not versed in the rules of publishing houses and these discussions, but it seems that no one has any interest to get this resolved. Why are you afraid to tell someone where they can present evidence, but with a contractual obligation, because the solution to this puzzle is worth several trillion dollars of mankind, provided that the proof is correct. To all of you strange when I offer a solution, which is logical, because I’m an unknown figure in science. I’m trying for several years to publish other works, which are adjusted current scientific evidence (König’s theorem, Kepler’s laws, irregular motion of the planets, causing spin the planet, causing retrograde planets, and the like. Seems that the science can be taught only as a member of a rich group ( Mason), or if paid in advance for membership, regardless of what kind of benefits the science. come to my time when many will pray to know the truth, but then may be too late.
To you I say to all: the cycle of the sunspots average of 11.2 years is base to which are connected to many other cycles that you do not want to know, nor without it can resolve the issue.

Since there was no information on what you “spiked” from V., I cannot address that matter. As you say you can and should “reserve the right”. There is an implication that it had something to do with sunspot cycles, and plate tectonics, which I would also agree would probably be rather specious. And, the other case, would be the total non-sequitor comment. This would be deserving of the elimination also. Plate tectonics would seem to involve things more on the geologic time scale, which would bode to climate influences ALSO on that time scale. That may be of interest, but as you noted, in a separate discussion.

Nikola Milovic says:
June 24, 2014 at 8:28 amI again, who knows the way, participants could help me by giving me the right address, I declare my evidence about the real causes of all events on the sun, and thus climate change which are the main indicators of the sunspot cycle.
One way would be to write it up and submit it as a guest post to WUWT.

Leif Willis Mosher etc y’all might profitably look at the Figs (esp 3) in Yamaguchi et alhttp://www.pnas.org/content/107/48/20697.full
here’s the abstract
“The Maunder Minimum (A.D. 1645–1715) is a useful period to
investigate possible sun–climate linkages as sunspots became
exceedingly rare and the characteristics of solar cycles were different
from those of today. Here, we report annual variations in the
oxygen isotopic composition (δ18O) of tree-ring cellulose in central
Japan during the Maunder Minimum. We were able to explore possible
sun–climate connections through high-temporal resolution
solar activity (radiocarbon contents; Δ14C) and climate (δ18O) isotope
records derived from annual tree rings. The tree-ring δ18O
record in Japan shows distinct negative δ18O spikes (wetter rainy
seasons) coinciding with rapid cooling in Greenland and with
decreases in Northern Hemisphere mean temperature at around
minima of decadal solar cycles. We have determined that the
climate signals in all three records strongly correlate with changes
in the polarity of solar dipole magnetic field, suggesting a causal
link to galactic cosmic rays (GCRs). These findings are further
supported by a comparison between the interannual patterns of
tree-ring δ18O record and the GCR flux reconstructed by an ice-core
10Be record. Therefore, the variation of GCR flux associated with
the multidecadal cycles of solar magnetic field seem to be causally
related to the significant and widespread climate changes at least
during the Maunder Minimum.”
Leif I suppose you don’ agree with the Pedro et al quote I posted earlier.
“The value of the Steinhilber interpretations is indicated in the following link posted earlier by Sturgishooperhttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X12004748
“This suggests that studies which assimilate bipolar composite 10Be records in solar or cosmic ray
intensity reconstructions (e.g. Steinhilber et al., 2012), or variants,
such as the leading principal component of multiple records (e.g.
Muscheler et al., 2007b) are less likely to introduce spurious
climate-related signals than those assimilating 10Be records from
individual sites (e.g. Bard et al., 2000; Vonmoos et al., 2006;
Shapiro et al., 2011). Using multiple 10Be records in addition to
cosmogenic 14C (from tree rings), which has a very different
geochemical behaviour to 10Be, can help to further decouple the
climate signal from the 10Be record (e.g. Muscheler et al., 2007b;
Usoskin et al., 2009; Steinhilber et al., 2012″

I see nothing in that paper that supports the contention that the grand minimums caused a cooler planet.

1. They cite a change in GCR. However, looking at the highest resolution measured data we have
on GCR, clouds, and temperature we can find no relationship between GCR and temperature.
2. They use proxies from one limited area of the globe.
3. they cite Mann 99 for a recon on the NH

Epic fail.

Please do not tell me that the REASON YOU BELIEVE is a study that uses mann 99

Dr Norman Page says:
June 24, 2014 at 8:38 amy’all might profitably look at the Figs (esp 3) in Yamaguchi et al
“10Be record. Therefore, the variation of GCR flux associated with
the multidecadal cycles of solar magnetic field seem to be causally
related to the significant and widespread climate changes at least
during the Maunder Minimum.”
Although I value the opinion of my good friend Miyahara, there is little profit to extract from their paper. They advocate a 22-yr cycle impulse of short duration, based on superposed epoch analysis of only four cycles. This is much too short for any firm conclusion. If they would extend that analysis to the many more cycles that we actually have, their paper would be of interest.

Leif I suppose you don’ agree with the Pedro et al quote I posted earlier.
Many researchers do not agree with Pedro et al. There is a strong climate signal in the cosmic ray record [as strong or stronger than the solar modulation] so no real conclusions can be drawn.

Your problem is selective attention to papers that support your ideas without consideration of others that do not. I have yet to see your list of non-supportive papers. Perhaps you could take some time to compile such a list.

william says:
June 24, 2014 at 7:41 am
I believe that the discussion has degraded to the level of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. We cant know even assuming they exist. That pretty sums up our knowledge of the climate. It changes and we really dont know why so arguing about what level of co2 or sunspots it takes to change the weather seems pointless.
———————————————

There is nothing wrong with looking for answers but I would agree with you. My analogy to predicting climate is to get in a small boat in the middle of the ocean and predict by how much and when waves will move you up and down… with your eyes closed. All you have to go on is past up and down motions and your records of those are pretty spotty. Good luck.

RomanM says:
June 24, 2014 at 9:02 amWhere can one find a copy of the data for the “new” SSN’s? Also, have there been changes to the official dates for the various cycle maxima and minima?
As the data is still being finalized you will have to be content with an approximate list [which should be good for most kinds of studies]: Take the official SIDC/SILSO list and increase all values before 1947 by 20% or decrease all post-1946 values by 20% [which is what we decided to do]. The times of maxima and minima are not affected.

“Paul Westhaver says:
June 24, 2014 at 8:37 am
“….And while the record is fragmentary and based on a small number of stations, it’s the best we have”

What you have just isn’t good enough. If you don’t have the data, you can’t prove or disprove anything.”

##################

science is not about proof. math and geometry and logic do proofs.

Science is about the best explanation for the data as given.

That means you use the data you have to constrain belief, to bound belief, to rule out as much as you can. You use the data as given to create the best explanation given the data. And then you work to improve that.

Ulric Lyons says:
June 24, 2014 at 9:14 amYes it is so, Dalton was cycles 5&6, Gleissberg was cycles 12-14.
Too much wishful thinking on your part. SC15-16 were on par with SC12-13 and the smallest cycle in that era was SC14 in the 20th century. SC23-24 would be the next minimum and yet the temperatures now are higher than ‘ever’, e.g. http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2705
So, no evidence for your contention.

“The Null Hypothesis is a fundamental scientific principle and it forms the basis of all scientific understanding, investigation and interpretation.”

Wrong. The null hypothesis is related to statistical testing. The term was coined in 1935.

Clearly, newton did science before the null.

In its simplest form the Null is this: its a statement that there is no relationship (statistical relationship) between two variables. But clearly, newton was doing science when he formulated his laws, and Einstein was doing science in 1905.

The null is not the basis of understanding or investigation or interpretation. The null is a TOOL used to check the results of statistical tests. Do not mistake a step in the entire process of coming to understanding as the foundation of understanding.

When newton formulated that F=MA, he did not set out by asserting a null and then disproving it.
Quite the opposite. He set out by postulating a relationship.

“Ulric Lyons says:
June 24, 2014 at 7:07 am
Steven Mosher said:
“If you point to a purely local record ( like CET) then you’ve havent made the case.”

CET tracks the NAO really well, that’s not local, and the NAO tracks the short term solar variability far better than any global mean that is hugely damped, and with major negative feedbacks in the form of oceanic modes working in opposition to the solar signal.”

“the two graphs diverge with the fall of the soviet union when thousands of weather stations across Russia went permanently off line. Remove a lot of cold stations and the potential exists to create an artificial warming, that cannot be explained by any other mechanism except CO2, because they only looked for CO2.”

WRONG.

one reason you must ALWAYS use anomalies. We use anomalies because if you dont then dropping “cold” stations will bias the answer. However, if you translate absolute temperature into anomalies then you will NOT bias the answer when you drop cold stations.
That in fact is provable.

Any of you statistical wizards out there ever tried, or are aware of, any AID types of analysis done upon the hodge podge of variables believed to effect global temperatures? All I seem to find are time series and regressions, mostly single variable, or graphical representations with multiple time series of one variable at a time. Perhaps an AID approach could discriminate among the factors causing ups and downs in temperatures. Just a thought.

“…You use the data as given to create the best explanation given the data. …”

Yes. Of course. I am simply making the point that no definitive result can be rendered with the data set in question. On another issue, There is no attributional of error or measurement uncertainty on any of the graphs which I always find troubling. I expect that a real graph would be a region rather than a line, and the region would be dark at higher certainties and faint gray at the edges.

Why is this important to me?

In a single earth day, where the sun varies negligibly in its solar output, the earth surface AIR temperature can vary over 30 C. So we know the effect of turning the sun off and on. We know its time constant.

To discover fractions of a degree change in decades form a solar flux variation superimposed on this signal would mean that you would have to be able filter out that very robust effect.

These analysis methods, by virtue that they are devoid of consideration of the measurement precision or certainty, must be no more that graphic ideation. Which I guess is ok for a start.

The null is not the basis of understanding or investigation or interpretation.

In fact, it is.

The Null Hypothesis is used to obtain an understanding of whether or not the current global climate and temperature is normal and natural, or whether it is unusual and unprecedented.

The Null Hypothesis makes it clear that current climate parameters are not unusual, or unprecedented. Everything observed today has happened before, and to a much greater degree: global T has been much higher, and also much lower before human emissions were a factor. Arctic ice cover has essentially disappeared a few thousand years ago, during the present Holocene. Sea level rise has been greater than now. Extreme weather events happened more frequently in the past. And so on.

Kevin Trenberth wants to get rid of the universally-accepted climate Null Hypothesis, and replace it with his own fabrication, which would force skeptics, in effect, to have to prove a negative. Skeptics would have to prove that global warming is natural, with Trenberth’s default Null being the assumption that global warming is man-made. That isn’t science. That is witchcrtaft juju, and it would negate the Scientific Method. Fortunately, Trenberth is getting no traction with his latest doctrine.

As we see, the Null Hypothesis has caused great consternation among climate alarmists. It holds their feet to the fire, and they don’t like it. So they want to either disregard it, or move the goal posts far down field.

But this is science. The Null Hypothesis has never been falsified, and that fact effectively deconstructs the entire alarmist narrative. That’s why Trenberth is going basllistic. He cannot accept anything that derails his gravy train.

Regardless of the sniping and knicker twisting, the thread has been invigorating.

WRT LIA volcanic activity that can 1) trigger, 2) sustain and 3) enhance cooling, I have been perusing research related to ENSO perturbations following an intense stratospheric equatorial volcanic pyroclastic explosion with multiple pulses (of which the Samalas Volcano shows evidence of). The evidence of ENSO disruption is building in the research community. But they are not there yet in terms of full understanding. So there is room for speculation. I do know this: ENSO processes are still poorly understood and have yet to be successfully modeled. Ask Bob Tisdale about that one. The dynamical models run too hot, and the statistical models are impaired by a lack of analogue years to draw from. To be sure, this scenario of mine is speculation for little ice ages, not for normal weather pattern variations such as we see currently. Nonetheless, I speculate:

The Trigger: Using Bob Tisdale’s explanation of how equatorial warm and cool pools of water are subsequently circulated and distributed throughout the globe, demonstrating current, serial, and lagged teleconnections with far flung large oceanic/atmospheric systems such as the AO and AMO, I speculate that stratospheric class equatorial volcanic eruptions can reduce solar insolation to the point that an El Nino event is initiated which discharges heat into the atmosphere, causing further cloudiness and disrupting subsequent opportunities for clear sky La Nina conditions to the point that adequate oceanic recharging is not sufficient to keep the planet within an average temperature band. Eventually the cooler, circulating upper layers of the oceans cool the land surfaces, thus causing temperature decrease on a global scale.

The Sustainer: With continued tropospheric and stratospheric veiling (it takes a while for super volcanos to quiet down), equatorial recharge continues to be damped, further enhancing the cooling oceans. I surmise this is why the comparatively sudden cooling is preceded by a very nicely warmed environment due to continued discharge of stored heat into the air (which also explains why some areas are warmed by an eruption before getting cold). But it is a potentially dangerous set up for sudden cooling when the oceanic source of the land heat is gone.

Once this onset phase has been initiated and likely sustained as the veiling continues with additions of aerosols as the large volcano continues to burb and gurgle, it likely eventually triggers other systems to go into their cool mode (see final note below), causing especially severe flora and fauna devastation from mid-latitudes to the poles.

WRT the Little Ice Age, evidence is building for an earlier initiation of that event. It is being found in high latitude flora kill dates that demonstrate a decided turn towards much colder temperatures of a rather sudden nature occurring before global temperatures demonstrate a steep dive. This is important and makes sense. Prior to global temperatures taking a steep dive, it is likely that freezing conditions started earlier and at higher latitudes. This has been confirmed, which is why the initial date of the LIA is being pushed further back from where it has been historically set. This makes complete sense. Ice Ages big and small come from the North and have to travel quite a ways before the Thames freezes over. The various systems have to be triggered which then cascades over time into lower latitudes. Yes, it is sudden in the time scale used here in that it may take a couple hundred years or less before global temperature proxies show it as a clear signal.

All this is to say that the most recent research related to the Little Ice Age trigger is showing hard evidence that things started dying from cold waaaayyyyy before the solar Maunder Minimum when the Sun was just fine and working like a trooper. This earlier kill date meshes with my speculation (and one that is appearing in the literature more and more) that a super event such as an equatorial stratospheric eruption in 1257 could have been that trigger as well as the sustainer.

The Enhancer: Imagine if it had happened during a normal weather pattern variation that was already on the cold side. Yikes!

“Before you throw Lamb under the bus, you need to read his entire book, “Climate History of the Modern World”.

So, the reason you believe is because Lamb wrote a book?
or read this book and you will believe?
Im not getting the scientific argument here

What data suggests that Lamb was right?
Did lamb make an argument connecting the solar minimum and global cooling?
Did Lamb RULE OUT other causes.?

Folks are forgetting this last step

It is not enough for warmists to show a relationship between C02 and warming. They also have to show that it other causes are ruled out. How many times have we seen this argument?
well the same challenge awaits those who want to claim its the sun stupid

And there is more. Notice what Willis is pointing out in the limited records we have. There is no clear relationship, during minimums the temperature also goes up. Now, look at the C02 versus
temperature in the past 15 years. C02 has gone up and temperature has stayed flat.

A) how many of you conclude from this disconnect that c02 is not the cause of warming.
If you do, then what do you make of the disconnect between solar staying flat and the
temperature going up? goose meet gander.
B) note the special pleading.. “yes there is a disconnect BUT.. xyz might explain the disconnect.”
Now, consider the arguments about C02.. yes there is a disconnect but the heat is hiding
in the ocean. goose meet gander.

It’s pretty clear that two groups of thinkers fall into the same argumentative patterns.
those groups would be 1) its C02 dammit. 2) its the sun stupid.

Those two groups do the exact same things when asked for evidence. They point to papers they never read or audited. They engage in special pleading when the data and their theory are at odds.

“71% of this planets surface is ocean. It does not absorb energy as a “near blackbody” but rather as a “selective surface”

Wrong. The best up to date measurements of ocean emissivity in the 8-14 μm range are 0.98 to 0.99.

Doc, don’t bother. Konrad did an experiment which has convinced him that the emissivity of seawater is ≈ 0 in the thermal infrared, and like Peter Parker’s spider bite, it has given him a mysterious power which enables him to ignore all other scientific results on the subject.

And no, Konrad, this is not an invitation to discuss your idee fixé, nor is it the thread for that. Please, let’s stick with solar minima, thanks.

It should also be noted that UV-A still has the power of ~10 w/m2 at 50m depth.
***

10 W/m2? The solar-cycle TSI variance is a mere ~1.5 W/m2. I realize UV varies more than TSI, but are you sure that much gets to the surface? Most UV is absorbed in the thin stratosphere.

If UV decreases during solar minimums more than TSI, solar IR must increase to mostly compensate (to get to the ~1.5 W/m2 change), and solar IR is not significantly absorbed in the stratosphere and mostly gets to the surface. That seems to suggest slightly more W/m2 are penetrating the atmosphere & reaching the surface during solar minimums.

The proposals about ozone absorption affecting jet streams, etc, are not convincing to me.

The Null Hypothesis is used to obtain an understanding of whether or not the current global climate and temperature is normal and natural, or whether it is unusual and unprecedented.”

Did netwon do science?
what was his null
Did einstein do science?
what was his null.
When foucault postulated that the earth rotated, and built his pendulum to demonstrate this
what was his null?
when rotengen discovered X rays what was his null?

In none of these cases and countless others, there was no null.

A Null is not foundational to doing science. it is a tool. merely a tool

Now, on to your “null”

Is the current temperature “normal” or unprecedented?

1. That is not a proper null
A) normal is undefined’
B) unprecedented is undefined.
2. Assuming a working definition of normal ( normal = the full envelope of temperatures earth has seen since forming) we see the following

A) todays temperature falls WITHIN the bounds of normal.
B) it is warmer now than in 1850.

3. Science tries to explain 2B. That is. science seeks the BEST explanation for the very normal
rise in temperature since 1850. One does not have to show that a phenomena is abnormal
to explain it.

Its like this. I note that your kids are smaller than mine. your daughter is 5 foot 2, mine is 5 foot
11. Both fall within normal bounds. neither is a giant. neither is a midget. We do not stop
explaining simply because a phenomena is “normal” ( which is not actually a scientific concept)
we try to explain why my daughter is taller than yours. A good start to explaining that would be genetics. Does genetics explain it all? probably not.

The 9400-year record contains 26 Grand Minima (GM) similar to the Maunder Minimum, most of which occurred as sequences of 2 – 7 GM with intervals of 800 – 1200 years in between, in which there were no GM.http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013SoPh..286..609M

WRT the Little Ice Age, evidence is building for an earlier initiation of that event… This earlier kill date meshes with my speculation (and one that is appearing in the literature more and more) that a super event such as an equatorial stratospheric eruption in 1257 could have been that trigger as well as the sustainer.

That makes sense to me. Something caused the LIA, and it wasn’t the usual suspects. It is an anomaly that produced one of the coldest episodes in the 10,700 year Holocene. As the planet emerged from the LIA, CO2 coincidentally rose for a small part of that time. That spurious correlation was enough to generate the climate alarm industry, and we are finally starting to emerge from that, too.

If I use the same method on both TSI and temperatures, the picture is once again intriguing. When the graph is falling the measurements are less than average and opposite when it is rising. Both the sun and the temperatures data give the the same picture, and the turning points are at the same time. When the sun is below the average of activity for the period, so is the temperature.

Ulric Lyons says:
June 24, 2014 at 9:53 amCET has taken a sharp downturn from SC24.
What is important is the global temperature. Now you are claiming that CET is not a good measure for the global temperature.

Anthony only you can decide that . You have to evaluate if they are in error or not based on all the data you have access to and take it from there. I have access to that same data and from my point of view they are both going strongly against what the majority of all the latest research is pointing to.

I know you feature David Archibald and that gives some balance to your site. Maybe more of that slant of an article will help bring more balance if they(Leif and Willis) are to stay as main posters on your site. Balance is so important especially in this crazy field.

I had sent you a nice article yesterday which was a study done on the temperature variance from 1680 to 1780 that was never posted. I could send so many studies showing or collaborating the same conclusions exactly the opposite of what Willis/Leif keep trying to convey..

They have no answers while they dismiss everything right out of hand.

Anthony think about what I am saying. I have talked to some in the climate field about you and they all had good things to say.

Thanks for the reply again Willis. If the straight line had a negative trend it would sure not be U-shaped. But, the point is that the trend is similar for both TSI and temperature. But I don’t say for sure that there is causal relationship, but I find it (more than) interesting that the graphs have such a likeness in profile, and also that the change of direction is exactly at the same point of time. And the average is for the chosen period, 1850 until present for both. And, yes, it is Leif new numbers: http://www.leif.org/research/SSN-HMFB-TSI.xls

Thanks Ulrich, but I have a satisfactory answer from my literature review. Here is just one example of evidence of an extreme change in weather post 1257 in Europe. There are others, including mass graves.

You continue your attempt to redefine the scientific method with your post at June 24, 2014 at 10:08 am where you ask and assert

Did netwon do science?
what was his null
Did einstein do science?
what was his null.
When foucault postulated that the earth rotated, and built his pendulum to demonstrate this
what was his null?
when rotengen discovered X rays what was his null?

In none of these cases and countless others, there was no null.

A Null is not foundational to doing science. it is a tool. merely a tool

I refer you to my above post at June 24, 2014 at 8:17 am which is here because it answers each of your questions and explains your errors when it says

The Null Hypothesis says it must be assumed a system has not experienced a change unless there is evidence of a change.

The Null Hypothesis is a fundamental scientific principle and it forms the basis of all scientific understanding, investigation and interpretation. Indeed, it is the basic principle of experimental procedure where an input to a system is altered to discern a change: if the system is not observed to respond to the alteration then it has to be assumed the system did not respond to the alteration.

Some cases that you cite as a question are ambiguous (e.g. which work of Newton?) but in each case the Null Hypothesis was that the considered system did not experience a change unless there was evidence of a change. This must be true because it is a fundamental principle of empiricism; indeed, it leads to the assumption that the same physical laws exist throughout the universe.

All of the scientific method is a tool
(and I have resisted the temptation to add an ad hom. for amusement).

Your lack of understanding of such basics of the scientific method goes a long way to explaining your many strange comments on WUWT.

The Maunder Minimum (A.D. 1645–1715) is a useful period to investigate possible sun–climate linkages as sunspots became exceedingly rare and the characteristics of solar cycles were different from those of today.

WIlliam, this is exactly why I asked you for the one study that you are willing to stand behind … I cannot even replicate their simple results. Take a look at their figure S1-c, and tell me if you think there is a 0.5 correlation between ∂18O and temperature. I took one look at that and said “no way, their claim is way out of line”.

So I digitized their data, and yes indeed, the correlation is much smaller, only 0.29.

Finally, they run off and check the relationship between 14C and ∂18O in the Maunder … but they didn’t check the more modern relationship where they would actually have observational data to cross-check.

In any case, since the temperature-∂18O correlation is very weak in modern times (r2 = 0.08, n=35, NOT statistically significant), I fear that the study is useless. If you can’t show the claimed relationships have statistical significance today, why should we believe them for a period 400 years in the past?

If that’s the study you’re standing behind, William, I fear you just lost all credibility. However, I doubt if you put that up there to stand behind, so your credibility is intact, I reckon you just tossed it at the wall in the hopes it would stick.

It didn’t …

I say again—I’m not interested in something that you found with some google search. I want the study that in your best judgement is bulletproof, the study that doesn’t fall apart like this one did at the first analysis.

lsvalgaard
Whether not you understand that cosmic rays will be targeted in certain areas? Over the equator increase a little, but, for example, over northern Canada, much more. This is bad news for America.

Salvatore Del Prete says:
June 24, 2014 at 10:30 amBalance is so important especially in this crazy field.
No, balance is about opinions. Science is about data and facts [evidence in short]. On that there can be no balance.

Ulric Lyons says:
June 24, 2014 at 10:49 am“Now you are claiming that CET is not a good measure for the global temperature.”
As we can see since 2010, it can be a poor measure in the short term.
Yet you use it for SC24, go figure.

“Some cases that you cite as a question are ambiguous (e.g. which work of Newton?) but in each case the Null Hypothesis was that the considered system did not experience a change unless there was evidence of a change. This must be true because it is a fundamental principle of empiricism; indeed, it leads to the assumption that the same physical laws exist throughout the universe.”

Wrong.

The null hypothesis as a tool was developed in 1935.
it is tool used in statistical testing.
When netwon postulated that F=MA he was doing science. There was no null
When Einstein formulated e=Mc^2 he was doing science. there was no null.

The null is a tool. it It is a historical development, not foundational. It is used in experiments, If the experimenter is a frequentist. Baysians need no stinking null.

But tell me? when the structure of DNA was postulated, where they doing science?
what was their null?

When foucault did early measurements of the speed of light was he doing science?
what was his null?

An observation based investigation into what scientists ACTUALLY DO, an empirical investigation of what scientists do, a scientific investigation of what they do, will show you this.
A null is not required. The null is a tool. its a tool used by ONE school of statistics. you can do science ( see newton, see ANYONE before 1935 ) without a null.

When Fischer defined what the null was did he argue that it was the foundation of science?

It’s simple. if the null were foundational then one could not do science without it.
When X rays were discovered, that was surely science. What null was specified before that discovery?

Ulric Lyons says:
June 24, 2014 at 11:56 amAs I explained, not for global temp in the short term.
For the Sun to be a major player in global climate, you should use global values. But perhaps you don’t think the Sun is important.

Did netwon do science?
what was his null
Did einstein do science?
what was his null.

They falsified a number of null hypotheses. Newton falsified infinitesimals, etc.

The Null Hypothesis is a tool. A very powerful tool. The Null Hypothesis falsifies the cAGW conjecture.

I understand why believers in the “carbon” scare hate the Null Hypothesis, and that they try to denigrate it in any possible way. But unless it can be falsified, it is showing us that AGW makes no measurable difference in global temperature.

But is there evidence of a rebound back to stability?
There is building evidence of a slow temperature decline from the time of the 1257-58 eruption to what is considered to be the coldest periods of the LIA, with a sudden rebound, a span of time that took centuries to slide and then rebound. Caveat: Different models produce different results. One of the major, or THE major, drawback of general circulation models is their failure to reproduce ENSO events and oceanic circulation of ENSO affected upper layer sea surface temperature. In other words, WRT the LIA, they do not simulate the lack of recharge or the subsequent circulation of this now cooler water throughout the globe. Some do a better job of atmospheric circulation but even those do not fully consider oceanic recharge or lack of recharge. Given the abundant volcanic activity throughout this period, Earth would struggle (and apparently fail) to recharge its oceans to the extent that it could recover from such an explosive event quickly. Given the nature of the clouds getting in front of a willing Sun, even under normal circumstances, it is heavy work.

‘Not being a mind reader, if a man posts here anonymously to me he is indeed anonymous. I have no way to know who the person posting as tonyb might be. If he wants to post under his own name, he’s free to do so. Until then, he’s anonymous to me, and will be treated as such.’

Willis, over the last 7 years I have made thousands of comments and written around 15 major articles, many of which have been carried here. I post these in my own name. I originally used tonyb as there were numerous Tony Brown’s blogging. I am hardly anonymous.

Tony, you overestimate your own importance in other peoples minds. I had no clue you were posting as “tonyb”, so to me, you are indeed anonymous. And if I don’t know, there must be many others out there in the same boat.

You have to realize that I read literally hundreds of comments a day. People who use their own names I recognize after a while. And particularly egregious anonymous commenters as well, so I can avoid them.

But most of the time, anonymous commenters are somewhat of a blur, they come and go and use different names, and I’m damned if I’m going to spend the time memorize an alias and associate it with a point of view when you may change your alias tomorrow. In addition, if you post anonymously, I discount anything but scientific claims by about 90%, so I pay much less attention to people using an alias.

Finally, if you polled the folks who read the blog and said “what is the real name of the anonymous poster “tonyb”, my guess is that only one in ten would get the right answer, perhaps one in five … sorry, but it’s not all about you.

Each major article takes many months to research. ‘The Long slow thaw part one’ took 2 years and involved travel to various parts of the country as well as desk research. Part 2, which takes the record back to 1200AD at this stage, has taken three years of research which includes much detailed work at places like the Met office library and archive. I have spent my own time and money in researching crop records and other relevant material, and have had items translated from the original Latin scrolls and rediscovered old diaries.

The purpose of all this work is ultimately to try to point out the inaccuracies of the Hockey stick and its spaghetti derivatives. Whatever your opinion on Dr Mann, the HS is still believed at Government and educational level and it is to this market that my articles are increasingly aimed.

Tony, please correct me if I’m wrong, but from my you have used Mann’s work as a part of your extension of the CET backwards in time. However, nowhere that I could find in “The Long Slow Thaw” have you mentioned that because it was built around a bozo math mistake, that the Hockeystick results are meaningless …

In fact, you say the exact opposite, which was

The accuracy of the ‘hockey stick’ type reconstruction shown above was essentially confirmed by The National Academies of America in 2006 with their paper ‘Surface temperature reconstructions for the past 2000 years.’ (8) (

My friend, I fear that if you think the Hockeystick is “essentially confirmed” by the NAS study, you are most definitely way, way out of the loop. You desperately need to spend a week at say Climate Audit doing google searches on these questions. Your opinions are so ungrounded in reality that they are not even wrong.

And how do you combine a claim that you are trying to “to point out the inaccuracies of the Hockey stick” with your claim that the Hockeystick is essentially right? For that matter, where in the Long Slow Thaw do you mention that Mann’s incorrect math mines for hockeysticks? I must have missed that part …

So I fail to see what your point or your purpose was in using the hockeystick.

I have personally found that more influential doors are opened if you behave in a measured fashion and carry on a dialogue in a restrained and reasonable manner. . You choose polemics to make your points-that is fine.

And me, I agree with the bumper sticker that says “Nice women don’t make history” … go figure.

But please do not denigrate other people such as myself merely because our style is different.

Is there some part of QUOTE MY WORDS that sounds like a foreign language? You have accused me of “denigrating” you because “our style is different”. How am I supposed to reply to that kind of vague mudslinging, Tony? Obviously you are upset by something I said, but I have no clue what it is, and no way I’m gonna guess. Either tell me EXACTLY what I said that you’re upset about, or go away—I have no use for vague accusations that I’ve hurt your feelings boo hoo, that goes nowhere.

I offered some information early on in this thread as I have a very good knowledge of the last 1000 years of climate and are trying to point out-in a different way to you-to those that dictate the climate debate that the climate is much more variable than they have believed. It is a battle I have had with such as the Met office where I was fortunate enough to meet up recently with David Parker who created the 1772 CET record. At the recent Exeter Climate Conference with IPCC reviewers I was fortunate enough to be able to ask a sceptical question (the only one) of Thomas Stocker and had a discussion with Richard Betts.

And?

OK, you have “very good knowledge of the last 1000 years of climate”, which you say based on the bogus Hockeystick … is that supposed to be impressive? All that proves is you haven’t done your homework.

And according to you, you’ve actually talked to some climate scientists … is that supposed to convince us that you know your stuff?

I am sorry that you appear to be the only person on this blog who does not know me.

Oh, right, I’m the one guy reading this who is ignorant of the true identity of “tonyb” … you vastly overestimate your alias recognition, my friend. It’s funny how aliases have that effect, for some reason they make it hard to know who is using them …

We are natural allies for the most part as our aims are the same-to use science to find out more about the climate. Why you choose to misinterpret and attack me I have no idea. .

Natural allies? You are promoting the Mann Hockeystick as “essentially confirmed”. I say that it has been demonstrated that it contains an egregious math error which mines for hockeysticks and thus renders the results meaningless. How on earth does that make us natural allies? It certainly doesn’t convince me that your aim is to “use science”, quite the opposite, you’re using Mannian garbage and claiming it is science. And to top it off, you don’t even quote me when you attack me, hardly the action of a natural ally in my book.

Bizarrely, you’ve just done it again, claiming now, in a final bit of throwaway mudslinging, that I “misinterpret” you, one more uncited, unreferenced attack before you go. WHERE did I misinterpret you, Tony, and WHAT did I misinterpret? Without those, it’s just cheap sniping at me on the way out the door, and I don’t do well with that.

Look, Tony, I’m sorry I didn’t snap to attention when I read “tonyb”, but it’s one of the results of your choice to post anonymously. Not my choice. Yours. When you post anonymously, you lose some things, and name recognition is one of them.

And I regret that you are upset, and I’m happy to discuss that. Not only that, but I’m a man who apologizes when I’m wrong, I just had to do it over at Jo Nova’s … but you have to let me know exactly what I said that you disagree with. I’m not going to guess.

The thermal structure and composition of the atmosphere is determined fundamentally by the incoming solar irradiance. Radiation at ultraviolet wavelengths dissociates atmospheric molecules, initiating chains of chemical reactions—specifically those producing stratospheric ozone—and providing the major source of heating for the middle atmosphere, while radiation at visible and near-infrared wavelengths mainly reaches and warms the lower atmosphere and the Earth’s surface1. Thus the spectral composition of solar radiation is crucial in determining atmospheric structure, as well as surface temperature, and it follows that the response of the atmosphere to variations in solar irradiance depends on the spectrum2. Daily measurements of the solar spectrum between 0.2 µm and 2.4 µm, made by the Spectral Irradiance Monitor (SIM) instrument on the Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) satellite3 since April 2004, have revealed4 that over this declining phase of the solar cycle there was a four to six times larger decline in ultraviolet than would have been predicted on the basis of our previous understanding. This reduction was partially compensated in the total solar output by an increase in radiation at visible wavelengths. Here we show that these spectral changes appear to have led to a significant decline from 2004 to 2007 in stratospheric ozone below an altitude of 45 km, with an increase above this altitude. Our results, simulated with a radiative-photochemical model, are consistent with contemporaneous measurements of ozone from the Aura-MLS satellite, although the short time period makes precise attribution to solar effects difficult. We also show, using the SIM data, that solar radiative forcing of surface climate is out of phase with solar activity. Currently there is insufficient observational evidence to validate the spectral variations observed by SIM, or to fully characterize other solar cycles, but our findings raise the possibility that the effects of solar variability on temperature throughout the atmosphere may be contrary to current expectations.http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v467/n7316/full/nature09426.html

As always Willis you are asking some good questions. However, I don’t think your attempt to reduce Maunder and Dalton minima to some sort of binary on/off representation is particularly helpful or informative.

Whenever I see this kind of coloured band on a graph I know someone is trying to lead my eye. Show me the data.

It seems that warming coming out of Dalton matches SSN fairly well, despite what your choice of end date suggests. If anything there is a discrepancy going into Dalton.

Thanks, Greg, always good to see someone actually crunching the numbers. However …

First, it’s not “my choice of end date”. Those are the standard dates of the Dalton minimum, I didn’t make them up.

Second, what is the actual correlation (adjusted for autocorrelation) between the SSN and the CET? I grow weary of folks claiming correlation, but not calculating correlation. Come back when you’ve done that, and we can discuss it. An overall look at two smoothed datasets is not that useful.

I ask because I calculate the correlation (using detrended annual data 1700-2013) as being 0.3 after after adjustment for autocorrelation, and 0.08 before adjustment, which means that it is not statistically significant no matter how you look at it.

However, since you prefer a different presentation including both datasets (as I often prefer as well), here’s that graph:

As you can see, the oddities are:

1. Other than one cold year, the temperature from about 1785 to 1805 is relatively flat, with little to no cooling.

2. After that, the temperature dropped precipitously until 1813, long after the decrease in the sunspots.

3. The temperature starts rising steadily after that, long before any rise in the sunspots.

Oh, yeah, the correlation over that 71 year period shown in the graphic?

Oh, it’s a whacking great 0.02 … pathetic.

So I’m sorry, but as far as I’m concerned, the claim that the Dalton Minimum caused cooler temperatures is falsified.

It would be interesting to get a view from the solar physics community what changes in TSI would be required to produce significant climatic change given

a) TSI variation is stable at +/- 0.1C over many solar cycles.
b) It’s well understood that changes in orbit as per Milanković’s theory can induce climatic change.

It’s the conflation of these two ideas together which is giving some ‘lay’ readers an impression that solar TSI variation alone could be responsible for the mulidecade heating and cooling we’re seeing.

Before you throw Lamb under the bus, you need to read his entire book, “Climate History of the Modern World”.

Throw Lamb under the bus? I’ve hardly mentioned Lamb, I’ve used his data, and I’ve said nothing about his point of view regarding solar minima. In fact, I’ve never seen a comment of Lamb’s about either the Maunder or the Dalton.

So … exactly how am I throwing Lamb under the bus?

You see why I asked you to QUOTE MY WORDS, dennis? … and even when I do ask, people like you still think it’s wonderful to toss out bogus claims about what I’ve said.

willis Eschenbach: And well-meaning, decent folks like you who for some unknown reason blindly jump in to defend someone else’s uncited fantasy accusation that I’ve made a mistake just make it worse. Didn’t your momma ever tell you to stay out of bar-room fights until you understand the issues?

No, my momma did not tell me anything about barroom fights, and anyway, this is not a barroom and your dispute with tonyb was not a barroom fight. I did not “blindly” jump in, but I do admit to being “decent” and “well-meaning”.

I think you over-reacted to tonyb’s very mild comment.

OTOH, I have read some of the other totally unjustified criticisms of you over the past couple years, and I think I appreciate why “you get your hackles up” (as I wrote once before) so quickly.

But now look at this: Look, Tony, I’m sorry I didn’t snap to attention when I read “tonyb”, but it’s one of the results of your choice to post anonymously.

You didn’t have to “snap to attention”: common courtesy would have been sufficient. I don’t know who tonyb is either, except that he posts at ClimateEtc; you don’t have to know. Your language unnecessarily turned a small problem into a big on, and then a bigger one.

Lastly: Natural allies? You are promoting the Mann Hockeystick as “essentially confirmed”. I say that it has been demonstrated that it contains an egregious math error which mines for hockeysticks and thus renders the results meaningless. How on earth does that make us natural allies? It certainly doesn’t convince me that your aim is to “use science”, quite the opposite, you’re using Mannian garbage and claiming it is science. And to top it off, you don’t even quote me when you attack me, hardly the action of a natural ally in my book.

Bizarrely, you’ve just done it again, claiming now, in a final bit of throwaway mudslinging, that I “misinterpret” you, one more uncited, unreferenced attack before you go. WHERE did I misinterpret you, Tony, and WHAT did I misinterpret? Without those, it’s just cheap sniping at me on the way out the door, and I don’t do well with that.

I can’t find where tonyb promoted the Mann Hockeystick as “essentially confirmed”, but tonyb did write some criticisms of Mann. You assert that tonyb uses “Mannian garbage” without a single supporting instance. I’d suggest that provides 2 of the “misinterpetations” you want cited in the second paragraph. Thee are a number of others, should you care to reread what you wrote about what he wrote.

So you think that Mann is metaphorically a flea infested dog, but tonyb chooses to debate Mann in the published literature. You are natural allies with different strategy choices.

Pamela Gray and I have been pointing to Volcanic Eruptions as known causes of causing global temperatures to drop.

View on iceagenow.info Preview by Yahoo When one thinks about, for instance, what could have possibly caused the extremely rapid drastic global temperature drops during the last glaciation one could conclude that the only explanation is that Sun simply ceased radiating for a number of years. Another related explanation is that the Sun’s radiation ceased reaching Earth for a period of years. One very plausible explanation ties in with known observations of volcanic events whereby ejectae soot blocks Solar radiation affecting Temperature. Piggy-backing that explanation are the known volcanic activities occurring at the time of prior mass extinctions of Life. Yes, the Sun gives Warmth, but what Else could possibly have caused the abrupt rapid Global drop in Temperatures during the series of Glaciations of the prior Ice Ages?

As I showed with tephra deposition data, the 1257-58 eruption was not twice the size of Tambora in this standard measure of VEI. What you meant to say was that its sulfate load has been estimated at twice that of Tambora’s. It is not considered the largest explosive volcanic event of the past 7000 years, but one of them, as I pointed out and your own citation says in the first sentence of its abstract:

Stratospheric loading and optical depth estimates of explosive volcanism over the last 2100 years derived from the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 ice core

Gregory A. Zielinski

“The high-resolution and lengthy records of volcanic aerosol deposition in ice cores allow assessment of the atmospheric impact of different styles and magnitudes of past eruptions and the impact of volcanism during periods of varied climatic conditions. The 2100-year long volcanic SO42− time series in the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP2) ice core was used to calculate the mass stratospheric loading (MD) of H2SO4 and resulting optical depth values (τD = MD/1.5 × 1014 g) for individual, and multiple, closely spaced eruptions. Calibration of the calculated optical depth values with other compilations spanning the last 150 years provides a range of values for each eruption or set of eruptions essential to quantifying the climate forcing capabilities of each of these events. Limitations on the use of the results exist because this is only a single ice core, sampling was biannual and transport, and deposition of aerosols is not consistent among individual eruptions. The record of volcanic optical depth estimates is characterized by distinct trends within three consecutive 700-year time periods. The period from 100 B.C. to A.D. 600 is characterized by the fewest eruptions, and optical depth values are lower than those in the rest of the record. The exception is an extremely large signal of 3 years duration that is probably associated with an unknown Icelandic eruption around 53 B.C., with the possible contribution of another high-latitude eruption. The presence of another signal at 43 B.C. suggests that at least two eruptions impacted climate in the middle decade of the 1st century B.C. The period from A.D. 600 to 1300 has intermediate numbers and magnitudes of volcanic events except for the very large 1259 event. Stratospheric loading and optical depths values for the 1259 event are twice that for Tambora (A.D. 1815). The state of the climate system in the middle of the thirteenth century A.D. may not have been sensitive enough to the atmospheric perturbation of the 1259 eruption, thus the apparent lack of abundant proxy evidence of climatic cooling around A.D. 1260. The most recent 700 years (A.D. 1400–1985) are characterized by the greatest number of eruptions (half of those recorded over the 2100 years of record) and, in general, the highest stratospheric loading and optical depth values for individual and the combined effects of multiple eruptions. The large Kuwae eruption (A.D. 1450s) may have perturbed the atmosphere at least as much as Krakatau and possibly of a magnitude similar to Tambora. Multiple eruptions in the 50-to 60-year periods from A.D. 1580s–1640s and A.D. 1780s–1830s may have had a significant impact on enhancing the already cool climatic conditions in those time periods, particularly around A.D. 1601 and 1641. These findings imply that multiple eruptions closely spaced in time are more likely to have a major impact on a decadal time scale when existing climatic conditions are in a more sensitive or transitional state. The GISP2 ice core record also indicates that several relatively unknown eruptions may have been large sulfur producers during the 17th and 19th centuries A.D., thereby warranting further studies of those particular events.”

Had you read further into the study you linked, you’d have seen that it too discusses the fact that adding more sulfate doesn’t cause a linear increase in climatic effect.

As for the main point, ie the cause of the LIA, it was not the 1257-8 eruption. There is, as noted above, no evidence to support a climatic effect, let alone lasting, from this event, nor any other single eruption or multiple eruptions, much as Warmunistas try to make believe that’s so. You claim without support that evidence is accumulating for an earlier onset of the LIA. Besides your mention in passing of burials, please present this accumulation. Thanks.

Climate did start to decline in downs and ups after the height of the Medieval Warm Period, but didn’t cross over into colder than post-Optimum normal until the latter 14th century at the earliest, as shown in the first IPCC’s graph, later expurgated. For example, the Greenland Norse survived into the 15th century. On 14 September 1408, Icelander Thorstein Olafsson and local girl Sigrid Björnsdottir were married in the church on Hvalsey Fjord.

In much of the world, the LIA didn’t register until about 1500. For example, eastern China:

“Abstract
The long-term climatic pace has often been interrupted by short-term abrupt changes. The Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period represent the two most important such changes over the last two millennia. Largely due to a dearth of high-resolution climatic records, our knowledge on the spatial extent, duration, and moisture characteristics of these two events is incomplete, and this has hampered our understanding of the driving force causing them as well as the recent global warming trend. Here we present high-resolution climatic records reflected by the delta 18O and delta 13C in three stalagmites from limestone caves in China…Although the three caves are more than 1000 km apart, their long-term delta 18O records show patterns that are remarkably similar. The records show that in eastern China, the Medieval Warm Period started around 1000 AD and lasted until 1500 AD. A brief cooling during this warm interval occurred around 1150 AD. The Little Ice Age in China started at around 1500 AD and ended in the mid-1800s. Since then, all three locations show a warming trend that has been observed elsewhere in the world. The records of S312 and SF show that for the past 4,000 years, the two locations has had similar temperature variations with five distinct warming trends, but a different moisture variability which is probably more sensitive to local atmospheric circulation changes than temperature. In general, it was relatively dry during the Medieval Warm Period and wet during the Little Ice Age in eastern China. Of the five warming trends, the most recent one is the strongest.”

Moreover, volcanoes can’t explain the previous warm and cold periods of the Holocene or any prior interglacial, although it’s possible that volcanism increases after glacial phase ice sheets start to melt during the initial warming leading to interglacials.

blockquote>“71% of this planets surface is ocean. It does not absorb energy as a “near blackbody” but rather as a “selective surface”

Wrong. The best up to date measurements of ocean emissivity in the 8-14 μm range are 0.98 to 0.99. The 8-14 μm range is well-known because of the intense focus on sea surface temperature measurements from satellite. BTW 8-14 um is the longwave infrared a.k.a. “greenhouse effect.”

Typical of you to talk emissivity when Konrad talks Absorption, can’t you even read what he has said?

Ummm … before climbing on your high horse you might google Kirchhoff’s law, AC. It states that absorptivity is equal to emissivity … so your claim is wrong, and your gratuitous insult just makes you look vindictive.

And the Sun doesn’t rule the heating. Hmmm. As far as I am concerned, you can turn the furnace back in the house, slosh the water in the indoor pool back and forth until hell freezes over, and you are not going to warm the house. Yes, the Sun DOES rule the temperature, we just don’t know the exact way how it does it.

I don’t know who you think made the claim that “the Sun doesn’t rule the heating”, but it certainly wasn’t me. Is there something wrong with your ability to read the following from the head post?

The Usual Request: I know this almost never happens, but if you disagree with something that I or someone else has said, please have the common courtesy to QUOTE THEIR EXACT WORDS that you disagree with. This prevents much confusion and misunderstanding.

But nooo, a polite request means nothing to Tom O, requests are for the common people, not for Tom, so you just grab your nearest fantasy of what I said and you run with it …

Seriously, folks. You look like jerks when you do this. I will continue to point and laugh. Quote what you disagree with, or go away, I’m not interested.

w.

PS—Tom, what I actually said was totally different from your claim. I put it in the first sentence, so fools like you might actually notice it. I said:

… the slow changes in the sun have little effect on temperature.

And I went on to explain that the “slow changes” meant the Maunder, Dalton, and other minima.

sturgishooper says: June 23, 2014 at 10:55 pm
“It still pales against Tambora.”

I have shown you several lines of evidence that the 1257-58 eruption was a greater event than that of Tambora. You say otherwise. Where is your evidence? I have not once come across a line of research that says Tambora was greater or even equal to the earlier event. So please, fill me in. I want links.

Francis Grose (@JackPudden) says:
June 24, 2014 at 1:05 pmchanges in TSI would be required to produce significant climatic change given
A useful formula is dTST/TSI = 4 dT/T so a 1 degree dT over T = 288K gives dTSI = 4*1/288 TSI = 19 W/m2 which is about 200 times larger than the solar cycle variation.

sturgishooper says:
June 24, 2014 at 1:14 pmMoreover, volcanoes can’t explain the previous warm and cold periods of the Holocene or any prior interglacial
And there is no evidence that solar variability was the cause either.
You are evading the Socratic Method. I asked you to consider specific questions. Do that.

Your own link shows the dense rock equivalent tephra deposition for Samalas. I showed you the comparable for Tambora, which it would have taken you mere seconds to check out, should have chosen not to believe me. But I’ll save you all that trouble searching (all data are sourced):

Lots of others deposited more tephra than Samalas over the past 7000 years, as you’ll discover should you bother to look.

Why did you keep claiming falsely that Samalas (suspected as the 1257-8 event) was the biggest eruption in the past 7000 years, when your own source did not make that claim, for the simple reason that it couldn’t?

I am answering your post at June 24, 2014 at 11:45 am. It is far too long for me to quote all of it so I provide this link so anybody can easily check what I am answering.

The Null Hypothesis is a basic principle of the scientific method. This fact is not affected by Fischer having applied the Null Hypothesis to statistical testing in the 1930s.

You say

When netwon (sic) postulated that F=MA he was doing science. There was no null

Actually, Newton’s three Laws of Motion are the first formal statement of the Null hypothesis of which I am aware, it applies to mechanics, and was formulated long before Fischer made such a formulation for application in statistics.

As I have repeatedly told you, The Null Hypothesis says it must be assumed a system has not experienced a change unless there is evidence of a change.

Newton’s First Law of Motion
An object at rest will remain at rest unless acted on by an unbalanced force. An object in motion continues in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.
This law is often called “the law of inertia”.

Newton’s Second Law of Motion
Acceleration is produced when a force acts on a mass. The greater the mass (of the object being accelerated) the greater the amount of force needed (to accelerate the object).

Newton’s Third Law of Motion
For every action there is an equal and opposite re-action.

I could go through your series of silly questions, but there is no point because they are silly. They assume that the Null Hypothesis being a fundamental principle of the scientific method means it must be used in every scientific activity. That is a non sequiter.

Parsimony (often known as Occam’s Razor) is another fundamental principle of the scientific method but it, too, is not applied in every scientific activity.

You pose several pointless questions (probably in attempt to pretend you know what you are talking about) but they are a distraction. As illustration, I will answer one of them.

You ask me

But tell me? when the structure of DNA was postulated, where they doing science?
what was their null?

I answer that they were assessing a structure as indicated by an X-ray crystalograph. Their Null Hypothesis was that the optical rules which govern X-ray diffraction had not altered. They did not apply the principle of parsimony because there was no need, but this does not exclude that principle from being fundamental to the scientific method.

I have answered every significant point in your post.

And your assertion that science was not conducted before 1935 is plain daft.

Actually, Doc, I’m not ignoring the sun-climate connection you mention. I’m ignoring you. I’ve taken too many trips down the rabbit holes of your citations that ended up with nothing, so I quit going. But since you insist, let me have a look …

…

OK. I looked. It’s a long page with a great number of claims, no original graphics, about 13 graphics from a host of sources, dozens of links, no math, and lots of subjects. It’s headed “1. The Demise of the IPCC and the CAGW Delusion”, which is enough to make me stop reading right there. But I persevered, I put on my hip boots and started wading … until I’d traversed miles of mire without a single mention of solar activity, at which point I came to

2. A Simple Rational Approach to Climate Forecasting based on Common Sense and Quasi Repetitive- Quasi Cyclic Patterns.

… and I ran out of steam, climbed out on the bank, took off my hip boots, and came home.

As I’ve stated before, I ignore anyone who starts waffling on about “quasi repetitive” or “quasi-cyclic” or “quasi-60 year cycles” or anything of the sort. “Quasi-repetitive” has no definition, it can mean something happening twice, or something happening like a clock for ten years and then disappearing for fifty years, or anything else you’d like it to mean. It’s not science at that point, it’s just handwaving.

Sorry, Doc, but there’s no way I’m digging through that mud in the hope of finding a pearl. That kind of link to your stream-of-consciousness recital of your meandering thoughts and claims is the exact reason why I started ignoring your posts, and this excursion has given me no reason to change my habit.

You’ve got to boil it down, and don’t try to cover everything in one post, if you want folks to pay attention. You start with the death of the IPCC, you shift to Eisenhower, from there you jump to the “sinister symbiotic relationship” between politicians and scientists, and before I know it, you’re off on your hobby-horse with a new whiz-bang climate forecasting model, heedless of the huge changes of subject all along the path … and then just when I’m getting used to it, you’ve given up on your forecasting model and you’re talking about neutron counts or something else.

My suggestion for you is that you divide up that page into maybe three or more posts, focus each one on a single topic, and that you try to make them what I call “BCI”, meaning “Brief, Clear, and Interesting”. If you have good insights on the sun-climate connection, that has no place in an article about the demise of the IPCC, and vice versa.

You are trying to get your claims and insights noticed in what is a very crowded marketplace of ideas. To do that, you have to present them in a form that people want to read, and while your post is many things, it’s not something that I want to read.

IMO there is evidence that solar variability contributes to the fluctuations observed in the Holocene and prior interglacials, much as glacials and interglacials are mainly caused by changes in Earth’s orbital and rotational parameters, leading to variation in insolation.

Hi Willis, Always a pleasure to absorp your writings. My best shot would be the increase/decrease in the rotation speed of the earth as measured by IERS. See this link: http://hpiers.obspm.fr/eop-pc/earthor/ut1lod/lod-1623.html. The reason (for me) is the link between the sun’s magnetic regime (reverse of the sun-spot regime, see the notch of david evans) and the rotation speed of the earth designated as LOD (length of day).

Thanks, Oebele. From your link, the change in LOD looks like this:

I certainly don’t see any link to either a 22-year, 11-year, or longterm solar cycle in there … what connection are you talking about?

sturgishooper says:
June 24, 2014 at 2:03 pmI thought I had answered your question last night. I didn’t see any new questions today.
Never got and answer to this one:
lsvalgaard says:
June 23, 2014 at 11:15 pm
The proper weighting scheme to be compatible with the rest of the historical record is ‘no weighting’.
To continue with Socrates: do you agree with the above?
If so, should we not reduce the lone observers count to compensate for the overcount?

“….And while the record is fragmentary and based on a small number of stations, it’s the best we have”

What you have just isn’t good enough. If you don’t have the data, you can’t prove or disprove anything.

Thanks, Paul, but you’re talking to the wrong guy. If we don’t have the data then we can’t say that there is a connection between the slow solar changes and the climate … but there are lots of folks out there claiming that just such a connection exists. So you should talk with them.

Me, I’m showing that even the fragmentary data that we have doesn’t support their claims, which is a worthwhile exercise in itself. Not only that, but we have relatively good CET and Berkeley Earth data for the Dalton, and that data doesn’t support their claims either.

Thank you. I have absolutely no idea either why Willis thinks My work supports Mann any more than I have any idea as to why he believes I am attacking him.

I made some extremely mild comments which Willis seems to have taken against. Remembering his diatribe against Janice Moore I think it’s time to leave Willis alone. He can plough the climate furrow in his own way and i will.plough it in mine,hopefully some day he will come to realise that our destination is the same, even if our routes are different.
Tonyb

As estimated in the various linked studies, some have found that the presumed Samalas eruption released about twice as much sulfate as Tambora, which ejected almost four times as much tephra as the older Indonesian event.

Sorry I missed that follow up question after turning in.

If it were up to me, I’d count all the spots observable and measure the total area covered. If that’s not possible for all the historical record, then make the best estimate, taking into account properly adjusted radionuclide evidence on earth.

As for evidence of possible solar influence on interglacial climate fluctuations, there’s this recent study, comparing solar and volcanic effects on the AMO, which as you know is implicated in Bond cycles (so-called):

It finds a statistically significant solar influence before c. 1775 and a solar and volcanic effect thereafter (I suppose possibly because of nearby Laki, 1783-4, and distant but big Tambora). Citations are also helpful.

From the link that announced evidence for the Samalas location of the 1257-58 eruption:

“Table S1. The largest well-documented volcanic eruptions (M > 5) during the Holocene”
The authors placed Samalas 4th on their list.

In the past 7000 years Santorini (1627–1600 BC) and Samalas (1257-58) are clearly neck and neck in terms of which is the greater eruption with one having slightly greater magnitude and the other having slightly greater intensity. No other eruptions in the past 7000 years comes close. Mazama, a real banger right here in Oregon, was bigger but was +7000 years ago by about 700 years. It is mincing words to say which is THE biggest in 7000 years. There are only two vying for the title “THE” biggest. Pick between the two. Some authors now point to Samalas as being the bigger one due to its slightly greater intensity. Others give it a tie. Still others rank Santorini barely ahead because of its slightly greater magnitude. It may yet turn out to hinge on the evidence of global climate proxies and evidence of global disruption to flora, fauna, and civilization as to which eruption was the more significant one climatically. So far the edge goes to Samalas. Barely.

Tambora is clearly in third place.

So once again, the line of evidence tells me that when you said Samalas “pales against Tambora”, I have to question your knowledge.

The fact is that Samalas pales in comparison with Tambora and a number of other eruptions based upon the critical parameter of tephra ejection. The estimates are not even close.

Again for the I don’t know how many-th time: Tambora 150 km^3; Samalas 40 km^3. Forty pales in comparison with 150. For the reasons described in your very own link, the climatic effects of Samalas’ greater sulfate spewage were negligible, as also verified in my link to a paper by the very guy who made the sulfate comparison relied upon by the author of your link.

“Numerous searches have been made to try establish whether
or not cosmic rays could have affected the climate, either
through cloud formation or otherwise. We have one possible
hint of a correlation between solar activity and the mean
global surface temperature. This is comprised of an oscillation
in the temperature of amplitude +/- 0.07 degC in amplitude with a
22 year period. The cosmic ray data show a similar oscillation
but delayed by 1–2 years. The long term change in the cosmic
ray rate is less than the amplitude of the 22 year variation on
the cosmic ray rate. Using the changing cosmic ray rate as a
proxy for solar activity, this result implies that less than 14%
of global warming seen since the 1950s comes from changes
in solar activity. Several other tests have been described and
their results all indicate that the contribution of changing solar
activity either through cosmic rays or otherwise cannot have
contributed more than 10% of the global warming seen in the
twentieth century.”

Sturgis, tephra deposit in the surrounding area is not the best measure of overall magnitude and intensity. What gets into the stratosphere is the better measure of its global impact and therefore significance climatically. Even better, when ice cores from both poles show the eruption, you can say to one and all, that was a big one. The eruption of 1257-58 shows up in North and South Pole ice cores and stands way above the signatures of other bi-polar sulfur and ash deposits, including Tambora’s.

sturgishooper says:
June 24, 2014 at 2:26 pmAs estimated in the various linked studies, some have found that the presumed Samalas eruption released about twice as much sulfate as Tambora, which ejected almost four times as much tephra as the older Indonesian event.
So Samales was much bigger than Tambora. Good to establish that.

If it were up to me, I’d count all the spots observable and measure the total area covered.
My question was not what you would do. I’ll repeat it:
svalgaard says:
June 23, 2014 at 11:15 pm
The proper weighting scheme to be compatible with the rest of the historical record is ‘no weighting’.
To continue with Socrates: do you agree with the above?
If so, should we not reduce the lone observers count to compensate for the overcount?

As for evidence of possible solar influence on interglacial climate fluctuations
The past few hundred year hardly qualify as ‘interglacial’.

You can find standard definitions for everything I mentioned, and brightness is part of it. Notice you made a much much bigger deal out of the use of that word than I did, although Jack Eddy reported in the BBC video circa 1977 “The Sunspot Mystery” that people back during the Maunder Minimum observed the sun to be “dim”. That qualitative observation can be tested scientifically in this day and age. That video link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3frXY_rG8c . I recommend it for it’s historical perspective.

“”…. brightness is part of it. Notice you made a much much bigger deal out of the use of that word than I did, although Jack Eddy reported in the BBC video circa 1977 “The Sunspot Mystery” that people back during the Maunder Minimum observed the sun to be “dim”. ….”””

“”…. brightness is part of it. ……………observed the sun to be “dim”. ….”””

So OK, just what does the word …… DIM …… have to do with the word ……BRIGHTNESS……”” ??

Those two words, don’t even have the same number of syllables; let alone the same meaning.

I noticed YOU didn’t cite ANY of those “standard definitions” of everything you mentioned.

I’ve been using all of that terminology, continually for at least the last 55 years of gainful employment. I have shelves of standard textbooks, that go into them in interminable detail.

So I don’t actually need to know what your “standard definitions” references say. It’s my bread and butter, which is why I keep them all in my head..

I once wrote an extensive invited paper on radiometry and photometry, and its measures and units, for a very popular Electronics Industry weekly magazine, to educate electronic engineers on the metrology for LED light sources. That was more than 40 years ago.

The magazine editor “edited” my raw copy, “to make it more interesting to read.” Then he sent it to me, asking me to check it for technical correctness, and send it back.

Everywhere I had used some correct scientific unit or quantity or word, with precise defined meanings, the editor had simply replaced them willy nilly, with some street language synonyms from a thesaurus; well, to make it more interesting (and quite meaningless).

So I sent his script back to him with the short note; “It WAS technically correct, as I originally wrote it.”

The magazine published my App Note verbatim, and never changed a single word or punctuation mark.

The editor subsequently apologized for not understanding that scientific terms have specific meanings, and cannot be replaced by colloquialisms ; like “brightness” for example.

If you want to keep using incorrect terminology; go for it. I actually don’t care, that you do that. I do care that you mislead others.

Francis Grose (@JackPudden) says:
June 24, 2014 at 2:40 pm“Several other tests have been described and
their results all indicate that the contribution of changing solar activity either through cosmic rays or otherwise cannot have contributed more than 10% of the global warming seen in the twentieth century.”
Sounds like a sober and well-supported analysis

You did not establish any such thing. As I’ve repeatedly shown Pamela, Tambora was about four times as massive as Samalas. Tephra and not sulfates is how eruptions are measured.

I guess I wasn’t clear enough. No, we should not reduce the observer count to compensate.

I also guess you’re less familiar with elementary earth history than I assumed. The Holocene is an interglacial. It started over 11,000 years ago but includes the past several hundred years right down to today. So, yes, AMO fluctuations since the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age have occurred during an interglacial.

sturgishooper says:
June 24, 2014 at 2:59 pmNo, we should not reduce the observer count to compensate.
Then we would have an inhomogenous record which is useless for studies. If an observer uses a much larger telescope should we then not reduce his count to compensate?

So, yes, AMO fluctuations since the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age have occurred during an interglacial.
That is like saying that what has happened the last five minutes is a millennium phenomenon.

William Astley says:
In case you missed it the planet has started to cool due to solar magnetic cycle 24. We can watch the cooling in real time with satellite data.

Thanks, William. To date, neither the RSS nor the MSU satellite temperature data show cooling. Their trends have been ≈ 0 for a decade and more.
What satellite record of global temperatures are you referring to that shows the cooling in real time?

Although the 17+ yr temp is flat, both the RSS UAH data show a 5-yr cooling trend of 2.5 C/century

No. As I’ve advocated, adjust the smaller count up, if there’s reason to think that the other observer missed some spots.

You make no sense. Fluctuations on annual to decennial scale, like the AMO, PDO & ENSO, and on the centennial to millennial scale, like the MWP, LIA and previous similar warmer and cooler periods occur in this and other interglacials, as shown in all proxy records. That Bond cycles operate in interglacials at a similar frequency but less amplitude than D-O cycles during glacials is also well supported. This issue is what causes these fluctuations. Is it insolation, as has been established for the fluctuation between glacials and interglacials themselves, ie on the scale of ten to 100 thousand years?

oebele bruinsma says:
…….
Re LOD
Couple of years ago I wrote an article about LOD , but never put it on line. From two sets of data (geodesic and geomagnetic), by using simple filtering I produced two graphs now added to my CET-D comment above .

That autofill is a bitch. Try typing Spanish on an English iPhone sometime. I could switch default languages, but that takes almost as much time, & the phone is starting to accept Spanish words anyway.

The absurdity of Leif and Willis is comical. More will be leaving this site until their free run and control of this site is curtailed. So many valuable posters have left already because of them being able to run free with all of their repeated absurd statements. They are off way off. I think Leif is more or less not based in reality. I am serious.

You need (Anthony) at the very least to start posting articles in opposition to what they are trying to say. Secondly you need to reach out to those who oppose them . This way your site will once again be in balance. Right now it is not.

REPLY: See, here’s the thing, and there is no way of getting around this: 1) Willis and Leif don’t control WUWT, I do. 2) you haven’t refuted what they have to say about a solar climate connection, so you go ad hominem, say they are making absurd statements, that Leif is mentally imbalanced, and try to guilt me into banning them. From my perspective, that’s just not going to fly here. Feel free to be as upset as you wish, but please refrain from commenting like this any further unless you have some science to discuss. If you feel you can’t, then you are most certainly welcome to make good on your threat of leaving. – Anthony

Willis
You asked for data showing the sun climate connection. You are not ignoring me – you are ignoring Steinhilber . I gave you a reference to a specific Stenhilber paper that is what you choose to ignoring.
Leif’s stock answer to any work on GRF is to point out that there are some problems taking into account depositional processes in analyzing the data properly – truly an amazing discovery.
The Sturgishooper reference pretty well takes care of that.
I said
“Furthermore Fig 8 shows that the cosmic ray intensity time series derived from the 10Be data is the most useful proxy relating solar activity to temperature and climate. – see Fig 3 CD from Steinhilberhttp://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/03/30/1118965109.full.pdf
This paper shows the direct connection between the various LIA minima and GCRs
This should be read in association with my other comment above
“The value of the Steinhilber interpretations is indicated in the following link posted earlier by Sturgishooperhttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X12004748
“This suggests that studies which assimilate bipolar composite 10Be records in solar or cosmic ray
intensity reconstructions (e.g. Steinhilber et al., 2012), or variants,
such as the leading principal component of multiple records (e.g.
Muscheler et al., 2007b) are less likely to introduce spurious
climate-related signals than those assimilating 10Be records from
individual sites (e.g. Bard et al., 2000; Vonmoos et al., 2006;
Shapiro et al., 2011). Using multiple 10Be records in addition to
cosmogenic 14C (from tree rings), which has a very different
geochemical behaviour to 10Be, can help to further decouple the
climate signal from the 10Be record (e.g. Muscheler et al., 2007b;
Usoskin et al., 2009; Steinhilber et al., 2012″
Couple of questions,
1What do you think of Steinhilbers paper- specifically his Fig 3 CD
2 Do you not think that a reasonable case – a useful working hypothesis- can be made from Fig 4 athttp://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2013/10/commonsense-climate-science-and.html
for a quasi millennial connection? (If you think that natural climate periodicities are not going to be quasi – you are in the wrong business)
2 If so where do you think we now stand relative to the late 20th century peak?

This link describes a new kind of data set that records volcanic explosiveness based on volcanic flux, as well as other measures, extrapolated from sulfur/ash records in ice cores. It describes the extent of stratospheric sulfur loading. This metric of volcanic significance carries global information. For the periods we are talking about related to global cooling, this kind of index provides information germane to this topic, whereas amount of tephra surrounding a volcano is not as germane. In terms of shear explosiveness into the stratosphere as measured by volcanic flux (total flux minus background flux), Samalas takes the prize by more than a length.

sturgishooper says:
June 24, 2014 at 3:16 pmNo. As I’ve advocated, adjust the smaller count up, if there’s reason to think that the other observer missed some spots.
You are not answering the question. Careful analysis shows that for the weighting scheme no spots are missed, just the larger ones overcounted because of the weighting. So to be clear: if you have two observers counting the same spots but one is weighting and nobody else in the world is weighting should we not reduce the weighted count in order to get a homogeneous series? Analogously, if one observer measures a temperature in Fahrenheit and another in Centigrade, should we not convert one series to the other by using the appropriate scaling?

similar warmer and cooler periods occur in this and other interglacials
There is no data for solar activity in other interglacials, so you are overstating your case.

Oppenheimer states that, “The global climatic impacts of large eruptions are known to scale, in a non-linear way, to the mass and distribution of sulphate aerosol formed in the stratosphere as a result of the atmospheric injection of sulphur gases (e.g. Robock, 2000).” Clearly, again, Samalas stands out. In terms of its ability to shoot its sulfur content up into the stratosphere and in huge amounts, the explosiveness of Samalas is unequaled in the data string studied by Oppenheimer.

For the purpose of this thread, I stand by my opinion that based on the literature review, Samalas stands out as the most significant and explosive volcano in the last 7000 years and certainly one of the most significant and explosive in the Holocene. Based on its signature, I have no qualms about accepting that it figured largely in the beginning years and I speculate decades of the slide down towards the depth of the last LIA in terms of its disruptive affect on ENSO processes that serve to recharge and discharge oceanic heat.

beng says:
June 24, 2014 at 10:07 am
———————————
Beng,
while there is considerable uncertainty regarding TSI, it is fairly safe to say it only varies around 0.1 to 0.2%.

The issue is spectral variance and its effect on energy accumulation in the oceans. Here TSI is not a useful measure as it does not account for depth of energy absorption. For selective surfaces such as our deep transparent oceans, depth of absorption has a significant role in rate of accumulation or discharge. The experiment posted up thread is a clear demonstration of this mechanism.

Willis Eschenbach says:
June 24, 2014 at 9:59 am
———————————-
“And no, Konrad, this is not an invitation to discuss your idee fixé, nor is it the thread for that. Please, let’s stick with solar minima, thanks.”

When I posted a comment regarding just one of my experiments, it was because it directly related to how spectral variance rather than minor TSI changes could effect energy accumulation in the oceans. The sort of thing that occurs at solar minima.

The problem here is we have little TOA UV data prior to 1978 and no accurate ocean temp data below 100m prior to 2003. The good news is the ARGO data base is building, and empirical experiment can tell us where to look.

Funny thing, I found this UV mechanism while looking at an entirely different issue. But it seams to match very closely to what David and Jo are looking at.

Dr Norman Page says:
June 24, 2014 at 3:24 pmLeif’s stock answer to any work on GRF is to point out that there are some problems taking into account depositional processes in analyzing the data properly – truly an amazing discovery.
This has been known for several years now and is not controversial, e.g. http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009GL03804-Berggren.pdf
“the transport and deposition rate is influenced by atmospheric mixing, scavenging and snow accumulation” and “Periodicity in 10Be during the Maunder minimum reconfirms that the solar dynamo retains cyclic behavior even during grand solar minima. We observe that although recent 10Be flux in NGRIP is low, there is no indication of unusually high recent solar acitvity in relation to other parts of the investigated period [the last 600 years].”http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1004/1004.2675.pdf
“We have made other tests of the correspondence between 10Be predictions and the ice core measurements which lead to the same conclusion, namely that other influences on the ice core measurements, as large as or larger than production changes themselves, are occurring. These influences could be climatic or instrumentally based”.

As I said, you really need to quit digging and lying more. Your link provides no such thing as “a new kind of data set that records volcanic explosiveness based on volcanic flux, as well as other measures, extrapolated from sulfur/ash records in ice cores”. Sulfates have been measured in ice cores since long before 2011. Nor have sulfates replaced tephra as the index of volcanic eruption explosivity, as you appear to try to insinuate.

However what your link does do however is explain why Tambora, despite being about four times as massive as the presumed Samalas eruption, appears in ice cores to have emitted only half as much sulfate.

“Three other events (1334, 1274, and 1235) are comparable to Tambora (Table 2) in volcanic flux magnitude. However, the actual atmospheric aerosol mass loadings by these volcanic events are probably not as large as that by Tambora, for, as discussed earlier, the Tambora flux in SP04 is much smaller than expected as a result of the significantly reduced accumulation rate in the period of 1500–1900 A.D. The Kuwae eruption and 1259 UE are the largest volcanic events in the second millennium A.D. in most Antarctica ice core volcanic records, except those from Dome C [Castellano et al., 2005], Siple Dome [Kurbatov et al., 2006], and DT401 [Ren et al., 2010], in which the Kuwae signal is smaller than that of Tambora. The magnitude of volcanic signals in low‐accumulation areas (e.g., Dome C and DT401) is highly variable, compared with signals in areas of moderate or high accumulation [Cole‐Dai et al., 2000]. Signals in the Siple Dome record may be significantly affected by the unusually high and variable nonvolcanic background at the at the coastal West Antarctica location [Kurbatov et al., 2006].”

And why was there a reduced accumulation rate during 1500 to 1900 at site SP04? The authors state that, “Usually, a significant shift in accumulation rate on a century timescale is a characteristic of climate change [EPICA Community Members, 2004; Li et al., 2009]”. However, they go on, such a reduction for so long hasn’t been reported previously. Never the less, it coincides with the LIA, and might reflect reduced snowfall during such a long, cold, dry spell.

The upshot is that Tambora’s apparently lower sulfate loading could be an artifact of deposition, not production.

You really ought to read all of the papers which you link.

In any case, you still haven’t offered any evidence that the 1257/8/9 event caused the LIA. On the contrary, your own sources state that doubling sulfates (if such a thing happened) doesn’t double the climatic effect.

Nor have you shown that Samalas, if that were it, is the biggest eruption of the past 7000 years. Based upon its estimated tephra volume of 40 km^3, it’s only a VEI 6 (10-100 km^3), while Tambora is a 7.

And well-meaning, decent folks like you who for some unknown reason blindly jump in to defend someone else’s uncited fantasy accusation that I’ve made a mistake just make it worse. Didn’t your momma ever tell you to stay out of bar-room fights until you understand the issues?

No, my momma did not tell me anything about barroom fights, and anyway, this is not a barroom and your dispute with tonyb was not a barroom fight. I did not “blindly” jump in, but I do admit to being “decent” and “well-meaning”.

Thanks as always, Matthew. The “bar-room fight” is what is called a “metaphor” for a situation where there’s a fight going on but you don’t have a dog in the fight … the dog is a metaphor as well, but you knew all of that.

I think you over-reacted to tonyb’s very mild comment.

OTOH, I have read some of the other totally unjustified criticisms of you over the past couple years, and I think I appreciate why “you get your hackles up” (as I wrote once before) so quickly.

But now look at this: Look, Tony, I’m sorry I didn’t snap to attention when I read “tonyb”, but it’s one of the results of your choice to post anonymously.

You didn’t have to “snap to attention”: common courtesy would have been sufficient. I don’t know who tonyb is either, except that he posts at ClimateEtc; you don’t have to know. Your language unnecessarily turned a small problem into a big on, and then a bigger one.

Again its a metaphor, Matthew. When I see a comment from you, for example, I metaphorically “snap to attention” because your ideas are worth listening to. But the name “tonyb” didn’t engender that response.

You go on to quote me saying:

Lastly: Natural allies? You are promoting the Mann Hockeystick as “essentially confirmed”. I say that it has been demonstrated that it contains an egregious math error which mines for hockeysticks and thus renders the results meaningless. How on earth does that make us natural allies? It certainly doesn’t convince me that your aim is to “use science”, quite the opposite, you’re using Mannian garbage and claiming it is science. And to top it off, you don’t even quote me when you attack me, hardly the action of a natural ally in my book.

Bizarrely, you’ve just done it again, claiming now, in a final bit of throwaway mudslinging, that I “misinterpret” you, one more uncited, unreferenced attack before you go. WHERE did I misinterpret you, Tony, and WHAT did I misinterpret? Without those, it’s just cheap sniping at me on the way out the door, and I don’t do well with that.

I can’t find where tonyb promoted the Mann Hockeystick as “essentially confirmed”, but tonyb did write some criticisms of Mann.

Sorry, I’d quoted it in the previous comment so I figured that covered it. In any case, it was quoted from the paper he referred to, where he said:

The accuracy of the ‘hockey stick’ type reconstruction shown above was essentially confirmed by The National Academies of America in 2006 with their paper ‘Surface temperature reconstructions for the past 2000 years.’

Where is my “misunderstanding”?

You assert that tonyb uses “Mannian garbage” without a single supporting instance. I’d suggest that provides 2 of the “misinterpetations” you want cited in the second paragraph.

By “Mannian garbage, I meant the Hockeystick and the various “stick-alikes” by Mann and others attempting vainly to rescue the Hockeystick from well-deserved oblivion. So yes, he did use Mannian garbage. Again, where is my misunderstanding?

There are a number of others, should you care to reread what you wrote about what he wrote.

Matthew, you’ve just proven conclusively that you don’t know what Tony meant by his unreferenced accusation that I misunderstood him. And this is no surprise, because nobody but Tony knows what he meant.

As to whether I should “care to reread what you wrote about what he wrote” in a vain effort to decipher his meaning, no, I wouldn’t care to do that. I used to do that. When someone tried something like that, I’d pore over his words and then respond to what I decided he was talking about … only to be told, often rudely, that I’d picked the wrong thing.

So I gave it up, and I’d advise you to do the same. It’s a fools errand. Instead, I do what I did above—I asked Tony what he meant.

So you think that Mann is metaphorically a flea infested dog, but tonyb chooses to debate Mann in the published literature. You are natural allies with different strategy choices.

Nope. After all the fighting I’ve done against the Hockeystick and its demon spawn (e.g here among others), anyone claiming that the Hockeystick is “essentially confirmed” is not my ally. Nor are they paying attention. Let me recommend to you what I said to Tony—take a week, go to climateaudit, and do a search on both the hockeystick and the NAS report. Both of them are trash, and anyone who thinks that the NAS report is fit for more than a series of post-evacuation exhaust pipe wipeups hasn’t done their homework.

In any case, I was serious about you being a decent and well-meaning guy, and I do snap to attention when I see your name on a post … tonyb, not so much.

w.

PS—And that doesn’t even touch the time when Michael Mann appropriated my ideas and published them as his own … so yeah, anyone saying that Mann’s work is “essentially confirmed” is no friend of mine, or of the truth for that matter …

IMO I did answer the question, and it’s that, yes, of course you should convert C to F or vice versa.

Apparently you’ve now agreed that there is evidence for a solar influence in Holocene fluctuations, for which recognition I’m glad. But there is also evidence from prior interglacials, so I’m not overstating anything:

Sturgis: FYI regarding volcanic flux as a metric of explosive power.
“A number of recent studies have used volcanic flux [Zielinski,1 995; Zielinski et al., 1997] and volcanic acid/sulfate concentrations [Robock and Free, 1995] to estimate mass aerosol loadings and to infer the climatic forcing of volcanic eruptions, although caution is essential when such extrapolations and inferences are made from ice core data. Cole-Dai et al. [1997] used a relative scale (volcanic flux normalized against the 1815 Tambora eruption) to compare the magnitude of volcanic events found in different ice cores. An eruption is considered large if its volcanic flux is comparable to or exceeds that of Tambora.”

By this measure, a preponderance of ice cores at both poles places Samalas quite a bit ahead of Tambora. Yes there are volcanos that have spewed larger amounts of tephra, but what does that tell us about the explosiveness of that volcano? Not as much as what gets into the stratosphere measured by fall out at the poles. Clearly you can understand the physics related to shooting something straight up that high. And surely you understand that volcanic flux as an extremely important factor in climate discussions.

sturgishooper says:
June 24, 2014 at 4:11 pmIMO I did answer the question, and it’s that, yes, of course you should convert C to F or vice versa.
So one should also convert the overcounted spots to unweighted spots or vice versa. right? In both cases it is just a question about a scale factor, right?

Apparently you’ve now agreed that there is evidence for a solar influence in Holocene fluctuations, for which recognition I’m glad.
This is a standard cheap trick. If you want to pull that one quote my exact words for that.

But there is also evidence from prior interglacials, so I’m not overstating anything
There are no evidence that the changes are related to solar activity, so you are overstating a lot.

Thanks to thingadonta for linking my articles on the timing implications of ocean equilibration. I just want to clarify the sense in which the timing issue can and cannot be properly described as a “lag.”

What Usoskin, Solanki and a host of others keep claiming is that the 20th century’s high level of solar activity cannot be responsible for late 20th century warming because solar activity was not rising at this time. When I press them on whether they are actually claiming that it is the TREND in solar activity rather than the LEVEL that would drive warming they admit that they are assuming very rapid ocean equilibration (so that solar activity would indeed have to keep going up to cause continued warming. But this assumption does not stand up to the least bit of scrutiny, and without it, temperatures will not stop rising when the forcing stops rising, but will only stop when the system equilibrates to the new higher LEVEL.

Notice that there is no lag in the warming effect of an increased forcing. (There could be some lag in the time it takes feedbacks to work through, but that doesn’t alter the fact that forcing effects are immediate. I would also expect feedbacks to be close to zero, or negative, if Willis’ excellent Thermostat Hypothesis is correct.) The timing of the appearance of this warming in the surface temperature record can be obscured by ocean oscillations but if we had good heat content data, we would see the warming immediately.

Where there IS a lag is in the inflections points. When solar activity hits its peak and turns back down the forcing effect does not turn immediately from warming to cooling. Just as the day continues to warm well past noon, so too will warming continue until the forcing effect from the level of solar activity falls below the level needed to maintain the temperature of the system. After 3 PM the level of diurnal insolation has fallen below the level needed to maintain the achieved daytime temperature and the day starts to cool. Diurnal insolation drops at noon, then after three more hours of warming the temperature levels off and start to drop.

In sum, changes in the LEVEL of forcing immediately affect the heat content of the system. Changes in the trend affect the trend in temperature with a lag. Maintaining precision in the use of these terms helps to avoid confusion. Just saying that there is a lag in which solar effects show up prompts the question of why. Why wouldn’t warming be immediate? Yes it would be (except as obscured by the random, not lagged, effects of ocean oscillations). It is only inflections that show a lag.

I wasn’t referring to you, but to Willis’ view that 1976 saw the onset of Maunder Minimum recognition. Did you read the post at the head of these comments?

Obviously, YOU didn’t “read the post at the head of these comments “. Not only that, but you’re the latest in a line of charming fellows who try to impute a point of view to me without a quotation. All that does is get your face slapped, and deservedly so.

What I actually said was:

Modern interest in the Maunder sunspot minimum was sparked by John Eddy’s 1976 publication of a paper in Science entitled “The Maunder Minimum”.

Since Eddy could only come up with a couple of references in obscure journals as prior art, I stand by that characterization.

However, I NEVER said that the recognition of the Maunder occurred in 1976, nor did I say anything like that. I said nothing about the “onset of recognition”, that’s all you.

In fact, the Eddy paper I cited gave a complete history of the recognition and naming of the Maunder minimum, so I figured nobody would be dumb enough to think I claimed recognition of the Maunder started in 1976 … foolish me.

Not only that, but I already explained this upstream when some other jerk made the exact same accusation. And I thought that might put the question to bed … foolish me.

In any case, are you really too distracted to notice when I say QUOTE MY WORDS, or are you just ignoring what I said, or do you have Oldztimers Disease where you forget what you just read?

It gets old, george, and every time you try this your reputation slips a bit. I’d give it up before it slides down to your knees …

Alec Rawls says:
June 24, 2014 at 4:25 pmWhat Usoskin, Solanki and a host of others keep claiming is that the 20th century’s high level of solar activity cannot be responsible for late 20th century warming
The problem here is that the 20th century solar activity was not particularly high compared to the previous two centuries, regardless of how many repeat the myth that it was.

You are standing by your lie that it was the biggest eruption of the last 7000 years, when your own source claimed only “one of the biggest”? Interesting. Even Santorini was smaller than Tambora.

Your own source and those I linked or quoted plainly state that doubling sulfate load doesn’t double its climatic effects. Now here you come, quoting the less recent Oppenheimer (2003) to the same effect, again destroying your own case with a quotation you provided! What part of “non-linear” do you not understand?

When I say stop digging, I really mean it.

I’m supposed to buy your conclusion based upon your “literature review”, when your own sources and the AGU’s VEI disgree with you? Sorry. No sale.

Please show how in your imagination Samalas caused the Little Ice Age. Oppenheimer says nothing about ENSO. He does state that the sulfate spike should have produced “a stronger climate forcing than hitherto recognized”, because “the comparably sized Kuwae eruption has been associated with a cool NH summer in AD 1453 (Briffa et al., 1998) and a sulphate anomaly in the GISP2 core at AD 1460”.

But the more recent studies I cited found no evidence of climatic effect. However, more importantly, neither they nor Oppenheimer argue that Samalas caused the Little Ice Age. So first, please show a long-lasting climatic effect in physical or historical records resulting from this eruption, then how these assumed effects led to the centuries long LIA, while also explaining the warmer decades between c. 1260 and 1350, 1400 or 1500, when the LIA is variously argued to have begun.

What you said was, “Modern interest in the Maunder sunspot minimum was sparked by John Eddy’s 1976 publication of a paper in Science entitled “The Maunder Minimum”.” This is blatantly false on its face, as I and others noted.

You yourself reference Lamb’s 1965 paper! Talk about Oldtimers’ Disease! You couldn’t recall what you had written in a previous paragraph. Or to you is 1965 not “modern” but 1976 is?

Thank you. I have absolutely no idea either why Willis thinks My work supports Mann any more than I have any idea as to why he believes I am attacking him.

I said specifically and more than once that you supported Mann by claiming that the hockeysticks had been “essentially confirmed”, viz:

The accuracy of the ‘hockey stick’ type reconstruction shown above was essentially confirmed by The National Academies of America in 2006 with their paper ‘Surface temperature reconstructions for the past 2000 years.

Sorry, but that’s just not true. The Hockeystick has never been “essentially confirmed”. How could it be, it’s the result of a newbie mathematical mistake … a fact which you never mentioned, despite it being central to the question. So yes, you are supporting Mann with those kind of claims, and yes, I told you this before so your current mystery about why I said it is … well … curious.

I made some extremely mild comments which Willis seems to have taken against. Remembering his diatribe against Janice Moore I think it’s time to leave Willis alone.

Really? You want to go there? Well, OK … Janice tried to use the time of my grief at the death of my father-in-law to sell me Jesus. I got upset, but I apologized. However, most everyone (apparently including you) seemed to think Janice’s actions were perfectly fine and acceptable.

So I asked everyone at the time if doing that at a Christian eulogy would be appropriate … I mean, if a Moslem tried to use a Christian’s time of grief to tell him that Jesus is a liar who can never bring him lasting peace, and try to convert him to Islam, would that be an acceptable and moral and right thing to do? Simple question. I just took exactly what Janice had said to me and substituted religions.

No one, including yourself from your account, had the stones to even try to answer the question. Not one person.

I fear that everyone refusing to answer that simple question is the shameful part of the episode. I stand by what I said and did. Yes, I initially responded out of my grief, and as a result my first response was over the top, and I apologized for that. Four times, in fact, because people weren’t satisfied. And after that they wanted another apology, but I figured four was good enough.

However, I didn’t apologize for calling Janice out on her attempt to use the time of my grief to sell me Jesus, nor will I … and that seems to have driven some people round the twist.

You, on the other hand, chickened out and refused to even take a stand … so you’ll forgive me for ignoring your attempt to teach me morals. You forfeited that right when you wouldn’t answer a simple question about the morality of Janice’s actions.

Tony, I didn’t mind your “extremely mild comments”. I objected to the fact that you had accused me without quoting what I said. It had nothing to do with relative mildness, it had to do with a simple fact. I can defend what I’ve said. But I can’t defend myself against your fantasies of what I said. You accused me, for example, of “misunderstanding” what you said.

But without a quote to show what I misunderstood, that’s just underhanded mudslinging, regardless of whether it is mild or not. I won’t put up with that kind of scurvy attack, because there’s no way on earth to defend myself against it.

So … I asked you what you meant.

However, as with my question about Janice, you haven’t answered … your choice, but don’t pretend that the ball’s in my court when it’s you that isn’t answering the questions …

Thanks for your reply to me. I remain completely baffled as to the reasons for your diatribe against me and the best thing to do is to bow out of commenting on your threads. Goodbye

Tonyb

Tony, I’ve explained my reasons in great detail, in no less than 12 comments, both to you and to others. If you still have questions, fine, perhaps you should ask them. But you absolutely cannot claim that I have stinted in my efforts to explain my position to you, I’ve done little but that in regards to you.

However, if you want to hop on your horse and ride away from answering my questions and continuing the discussion, that’s your option.

It’s also your choice, not mine. I’m still up for further clarification. For example, you could start by showing where in your “Long Slow Thaw” you point out that Mann’s Hockeystick paper was based on the newbie mathematical mistake of using an un-centered principal components analysis, and as a result it was meaningless … I missed that part.

What you said was, “Modern interest in the Maunder sunspot minimum was sparked by John Eddy’s 1976 publication of a paper in Science entitled “The Maunder Minimum”.” This is blatantly false on its face, as I and others noted.

While you and others CLAIM that it is false, to DEMONSTRATE that it is false you’d have to show significant interest prior to 1976 in the subject of temperatures during the Maunder. Eddy could only find a few papers that discussed temperatures during the Maunder prior to his study. Not only that, but the earliest reference which Eddy found was dated 1961 …

Which means to me that there was little interest pre-1976. As just one example, Lamb wrote the entire paper that I cited and never mentioned either the Maunder or solar variations even once … so it couldn’t have been a big feature in the climate landscape in 1965.

Nor is this surprising, as until the 1970s climate wasn’t really that much on the radar, so there was little interest in temperatures and the sun.

However, subsequent to Eddy’s study, interest went way up, with many, many papers referencing Eddy’s work in their investigations. There have been 1700 papers citing Eddy’s work since 1976, and I know of only about a half dozen papers at the most prior to that, with most of them in the previous decade. … that’s called “sparking the modern interest”, sturgis. It doesn’t mean there was no interest prior to that, which is why I called it “modern interest”. It means that it brought the Maunder to the forefront.

So I fear that you haven’t even begun to substantiate your claim of substantial interest in the subject prior to 1976.

Our combined 10Be record shows the highest values during the second half of the 20th century (around 1960 AD). These high values are caused by the strong decrease
of the Dye3 10Be data which led Usoskin et al. (2003) to their conclusions about the record high solar activity. This feature is dampened by the procedure used to remove ‘‘outliers’’, which results in the reconstruction that shows that the last 50 yr of solar modulation are high but not exceptionally high with respect to the last 1000 yr.

Whether solar activity in the second half of the 20th century was “exceptionally high” or merely “high” makes no difference for the question of whether it could explain late 20th century warming. So long as the climate system has not yet equilibrated to a higher level of forcing (by whatever mechanism that forcing is transmitted) then warming will continue until equilibration is reached, and there is no reason to think that equilibration does not take many decades. Indeed, this is what the IPCC assumes in its models when it conducts its “commitment studies.” As I previously quoted from the draft AR5:

“Constant emission commitment” is the warming that would result from keeping anthropogenic emissions constant and is estimated for example at about 1–2.5°C by 2100 assuming constant (year 2010) emissions in the future, based on the MAGICC model calibrated to CMIP3 and C4MIP (Meinshausen et al., 2011a; Meinshausen et al., 2011b) (see FAQ 12.3).

Up to 2.5C of continued warming over the next 100 years from the current level of forcing… This is radically inconsistent with the claim that ocean equilibration is close to instantaneous, as these same scientists assert as their grounds for dismissing solar activity as a possible explanation for late 20th century warming.

Willis
You asked for data showing the sun climate connection. You are not ignoring me – you are ignoring Steinhilber . I gave you a reference to a specific Stenhilber paper that is what you choose to ignoring.

Thanks for that, Dr. Page, and I’d be happy to look at it … but where is it? A link, my kingdom for a link …

I hope the young Norse couple wed in 1408 sailed or rowed away to Iceland, where the LIA, while terrible, at least didn’t wipe out everyone (there being no Inuit to survive or thrive). Iceland has such good records, it might be possible to find out their fate, if they went to live with his family rather than stayed with hers, to perish or be absorbed by the Inuit (the Eskimos of Greenland & eastern Canada).

IMO one reason why the Kuwae (c. 1453) & Tambora (1815) eruptions left a climatic signature, while Samalas (c. 1257) not so much, is because they occurred during the already tough LIA. Tambora of course was also during the coldest interval of the Dalton Minimum.

There were what would now be called extreme weather events in Europe in the late 13th century, & the Great Famine of 1315-17, followed by the Black Death from 1346, plus nearly constant warfare, but intervening decades remained warmer & more equable than usual for the past 3000 years or so. In fact the bounty of the Medieval Warm Period made it possible to breed & raise big war horses capable of carrying knights in full plate armor, which evolved during the 14th century, plus sometimes their own armor.

1. Sulfur injection into the stratosphere, as measured by ice core records indicate that Samalas was likely the cause of the well-recorded cold and cold-related events around the globe.
2. Volcanic sources of atmospheric sulfur appeared to be ubiquitous during the span of time encompassing the LIA, thus continuing to affect climate. The ice cores record only extremely explosive volcanic events thus sulfur in the ice cores at both poles would indicate stratospheric sulfur sufficient to reduce solar insolation at the surface.

3. Models support the hypothesis and observational record that large equatorial injections of sulfur into the stratosphere can disrupt oceanic and atmospheric patterns and teleconnections at least on a hemispheric basis, in particular the processes involved in ENSO.

4. My speculation is based on my literature review and Bob Tisdale’s work on the recharge/discharge process of ocean heat. It is shown in the literature that these eruptions slow the Walker circulation, trigger and enhance El Nino-like equatorial conditions, and would thus lead to oceanic heat loss, cloudiness, and direct atmospheric cooling. This veiling and subsequent cloudiness on a global scale further decreases any solar ability to recharge an ocean that is losing heat. Inbetween sulfur veil clearing the system takes haulting steps to regain sufficient solar insolation to recharge depleted ocean heat stores. However, the now circulating colder water now brings cold temperatures to land, especially during re-injections into the stratosphere, as was the case during the LIA. As long as these injections were happening equatorially, El Nino like events and slowed Walker Circulation would encourage heat discharge, not recharge. Eventually the supply of ocean heat becomes seriously low leading to extreme cold on a global basis. It may take centuries for sufficient recharge to reach an unequal seasaw ocean heat balance returning climate to a more normal pattern.

5. Temperature proxy records show that there was a slow step-fashion decrease in global temperature from a warm period. I speculate for that to happen the oceans are losing heat, not gaining heat. Volcanism, especially of the kind that occurred during the LIA is a candidate for that long up and down slide to the depths of the LIA.

6. My next search will be related to how did we get out of it. Once the force is removed that has been preventing sufficient oceanic recharge, the oceans should be able to crawl back to a previous level of oceanic recharge/discharge that keeps us fairly comfortable between cold and warm normal weather pattern variations.

Leif
Berggren does say
“We observe that although recent 10Be flux in NGRIP is low, there is no indication of unusually high recent solar acitvity in relation to other parts of the investigated period [the last 600 years].”
He also says
“occasional short term differences between the two sites indicate that at least two
high resolution 10Be records are needed to assess local variations and to confidently reconstruct past solar activity”
Look at his Fig1 in the link you gave. The DY3 data is a beautiful; example of how the 20th century
solar activity climbs ( falling Be Flux) to levels not seen in the previous 600 years.
All interpretations of data are cherry picked one way or another. Scientific insight is the ability
to know which cherries to pick.

1. Sulfur injection into the stratosphere, as measured by ice core records indicate that Samalas was likely the cause of the well-recorded cold and cold-related events around the globe.

—————————

Please provide the records which support this assertion, contrary to the recent studies linked & quoted here above which could find none. As noted above, your own link found no summer effect comparable to Kuwae, but just assumed it must have happened, despite lack of support. Thanks.

Then please explain how the many long warm intervals between c. AD 1260 & 1500 happened. If they coincide with periods of low volcanic activity, please make that connection, too. Thanks again.

Then please provide evidence for volcanoes causing the other cold periods in Holocene climate history comparable to the LIA, & explain why the planet has been in a long term cooling trend for over 3000 years, broken at fairly regular intervals by warm spells, the peaks of which are also declining. Volcanoes have a lot for which to answer. Thanks yet again.

Not to disrespect your work or all the countless hours of dedicated research… but why?
Why must there be some Holy Grail, magic formula, simplistic answer to everything?
Why can’t it be a more complex combination of contributing factors that influence our climate?

Sorry to be such a dolt but seriously… the mindset of A, B, C multiple choice? Have your ever considered “all of that above”?

Here is where I think possible further research is needed in the trigger and continued step-fashion slide into the LIA. They need to find a way to model the recharge/discharge function of ENSO processes under conditions of low solar insolation due to the sulfur veil, cloudiness, and decreased Walker Cell circulation. Then send those un-recharged cooler waters around the globe. Continue to hamper the recharge phase and force the equatorial region into sustained heat losing El Nino’s till sulfur injections reduce to background noise.

[1] Northern Hemisphere summer temperatures over the past 8000 years have been paced by the slow decrease in summer insolation resulting from the precession of the equinoxes. However, the causes of superposed century-scale cold summer anomalies, of which the Little Ice Age (LIA) is the most extreme, remain debated, largely because the natural forcings are either weak or, in the case of volcanism, short lived. Here we present precisely dated records of ice-cap growth from Arctic Canada and Iceland showing that LIA summer cold and ice growth began abruptly between 1275 and 1300 AD, followed by a substantial intensification 1430–1455 AD. Intervals of sudden ice growth coincide with two of the most volcanically perturbed half centuries of the past millennium. A transient climate model simulation shows that explosive volcanism produces abrupt summer cooling at these times, and that cold summers can be maintained by sea-ice/ocean feedbacks long after volcanic aerosols are removed. Our results suggest that the onset of the LIA can be linked to an unusual 50-year-long episode with four large sulfur-rich explosive eruptions, each with global sulfate loading >60 Tg. The persistence of cold summers is best explained by consequent sea-ice/ocean feedbacks during a hemispheric summer insolation minimum; large changes in solar irradiance are not required.”

[12] The PDF peak defining abrupt LIA cooling 1275–1300 AD coincides with an interval of four large stratospheric sulfur loadings from explosive volcanism following a multi-centennial warm interval, during which complete revegetation of deglaciated sites would have fully reset the radiocarbon clock (Figure 2c). The PDF peak between 1430 and 1455 AD corresponds with a large eruption in 1452 AD, although the ages of the three largest 5-year bins appear to precede the eruption date. In contrast to the earlier 13th Century peak, the second PDF peak occurs at the end of a 150-year interval of variable but falling snowline (Figure 2c), raising the possibility that the PDF peak plausibly reflects a brief natural episode of summer cold that preceded the large 1452 AD eruption. Alternatively, the apparent lead of kill dates with respect to the 1452 eruption may be a consequence of combined measurement and calibration uncertainties.

[13] Volcanism exerts strong negative radiative forcing [Robock, 2000] that could easily explain the observed rapid snowline lowering, but the short residence time of stratospheric sulfate aerosols precludes a lasting influence on the regional energy balance from a single eruption. Decadally paced eruptions may produce greater cooling than a single large eruption if the recurrence interval is shorter than the upper ocean temperature relaxation time of decades [Schneider et al., 2009]. This may explain multidecadal cold episodes, but many Canadian sites that became ice-covered ∼1275 AD and ∼1450 AD, following episodes of strong explosive volcanism, remained continuously ice-covered until the most recent decade (Figure 2c). Such a long-lasting response suggests that explosive volcanism must have engaged a substantial and largely self-sustaining positive feedback(s).

[14] Climate modeling reveals one such possible feedback mechanism. Following Zhong et al. [2011], we tested whether abrupt LIA snowline depressions could be initiated by decadally paced explosive volcanism and maintained by subsequent sea-ice/ocean feedbacks. We completed a 550-year transient experiment (1150–1700 AD) using Community Climate System Model 3 [Collins et al., 2006] with interactive sea ice [Holland et al., 2006] at T42 × 1 resolution. Our transient simulation was branched off a 1000 AD control run, and forced solely by a reconstructed history of stratospheric volcanic aerosols and relatively weak solar irradiance changes (Figure 2b) [Gao et al., 2008]. Details of the experimental conditions are given in the Text S1. In addition to a continuously sustained sea-ice expansion following the late 13th Century eruptions (Figure 3b), the simulation also shows a sustained weakening of northward heat transport in the North Atlantic averaging 0.04 PW less than the mean of our control from 1300–1600 AD (Figure 3d; statistically significant at the 99.9% level), and an anomalously cold and fresh North Atlantic subpolar gyre (Figure S5). A significant increase in April-September surface albedo poleward of 60°N (Figure S4) results in a net summertime energy decrease of ∼1.5 Wm−2 averaged over the three centuries following late 13th Century eruptions. Albedo increase, expanded sea ice, and lowered ocean temperatures produce a persistent reduction in summer air temperature across Arctic North Atlantic continents (Figure 2e), consistent with our primary observations of expanded ice caps at this time. In a sensitivity test using the same model, initial conditions, and 13th Century volcanic forcing, Zhong et al. [2011]showed that increased southward sea ice export following the eruptions led to freshening and vertical stratification of the North Atlantic subpolar gyre, reducing open ocean convection and thus weakening the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. These changes reduced basal sea-ice melt sufficiently to produce an expanded sea-ice state that persisted in the model for more than a century after the final eruption, without additional forcing. These mechanisms are similarly engaged in our transient simulations, suggesting that the initial snowline depression may have been sustained by the sea-ice/ocean feedback identified byZhong et al. [2011] for centuries after the initiating eruptions.
image

[15] Sea ice is the largest contributor to enhanced Arctic climate sensitivity [Serreze and Francis, 2006], and our transient simulation indicates that repeated explosive volcanism might have led to a persistent expansion of sea ice state during the LIA. This possibility is reinforced by a reconstruction of the abundance of sea ice in surface waters north of Iceland (Figure 2e). Sea ice does not form around Iceland; it only appears when there is a large export of sea ice from the Arctic Ocean. Sea ice was rarely present on the North Iceland shelf from 800 AD until the late 13th Century, when an abrupt rise in sea-ice proxies suggests a rapid increase in Arctic Ocean sea ice export, followed by another increase ∼1450 AD, after which sea ice was continuously present until the 20th Century [Massé et al., 2008] (Figures 1 and 2e). The increase in sea ice north of Iceland at the start of the LIA, and its persistence throughout the LIA, supports our modeling experiments suggesting explosive volcanism and associated feedbacks resulted in a self-sustaining expanded sea-ice state beginning 1275–1300 AD. Additional support for regional cooling beginning in the late 13th Century comes from the inversion of temperatures measured in a borehole through the south dome of the Greenland Ice Sheet (Figure 1). Although the temporal resolution is muted by thermal conductivity and ice flow, the pattern of temperature change (Figure 2f) [Dahl-Jensen et al., 1998] closely resembles our ice-cap growth histories, whereasδ18O values from the ice cores are poorly correlated with the borehole record, presumably because they are dominated by winter temperatures and changing seasonality of precipitation [Vinther et al., 2010].

[16] Our precisely dated records demonstrate that the expansion of ice caps after Medieval times was initiated by an abrupt and persistent snowline depression late in the 13th Century, and amplified in the mid 15th Century, coincident with episodes of repeated explosive volcanism centuries before the widely cited Maunder sunspot minimum (1645–1715 AD [Eddy, 1976]). Together with climate modeling and supported by other proxy climate reconstructions, our results suggest that repeated explosive volcanism at a time when Earth’s orbital configuration resulted in low summer insolation across the NH acted as a climate trigger, allowing Arctic Ocean sea ice to expand. Increased sea ice export may have engaged a self-sustaining sea-ice/ocean feedback unique to the northern North Atlantic region that maintained suppressed summer air temperatures for centuries after volcanic aerosols were removed from the atmosphere. The coincidence of repeated explosive volcanism with centuries of lower-than-modern solar irradiance (Figure 2a) [Schmidt et al., 2011] indicates that volcanic impacts were likely reinforced by external forcing [Mann et al., 2009], but that an explanation of the LIA does not require a solar trigger.

OK, I looked. That reference lists exactly ONE paper on the Maunder, the Schneider paper which was one of the three papers cited by Eddy … so you have provided nothing past what I provided, Eddy’s three references.

Not to disrespect your work or all the countless hours of dedicated research… but why?
Why must there be some Holy Grail, magic formula, simplistic answer to everything?
Why can’t it be a more complex combination of contributing factors that influence our climate?

Sorry to be such a dolt but seriously… the mindset of A, B, C multiple choice? Have your ever considered “all of that above”?

Who on earth are you talking to? Leif? tonyb? milodon? Me? sturgis? Matthew?

I plotted reconstructed TSI and temperature as available from Dr, Roy Spencer and their seems to be a reasonable trend of temperature and changes in solar activity. Changes in solar activity take decades to play out because of the buffering of the oceans.

Alec Rawls says:
June 24, 2014 at 5:37 pmWhether solar activity in the second half of the 20th century was “exceptionally high” or merely “high” makes no difference for the question of whether it could explain late 20th century warming. So long as the climate system has not yet equilibrated to a higher level of forcing (by whatever mechanism that forcing is transmitted) then warming will continue until equilibration is reached, and there is no reason to think that equilibration does not take many decades.
You will have to say ‘centuries’ as solar activity was as high in the 18th century as in the middle 20th.

Dr Norman Page says:
June 24, 2014 at 5:55 pmThe DY3 data is a beautiful…
There is general consensus that the Dye3 data is awful, because of the complex ice flow regime at Dye-3, where ice from the oldest strata has experienced significantly different summer melt and accumulation conditions than observed presently at the Dye-3 drill site.Scientific insight is the ability to know which cherries to pick
So you are an excellent cherry picker, I won’t disagree with that.

LT says:
June 24, 2014 at 6:43 pmI plotted reconstructed TSI and temperature as available from Dr, Roy Spencer and their seems to be a reasonable trend of temperature and changes in solar activity.
The ‘reconstructed’ TSI is not correct. The is no evidence for the long-term increase.

Do you yet again want me to do all your research for you? I said it was easy to find papers from before the ’60s on the connection between sunspots & climate & weather, because it is. The one I cited, Huntingdon’s 1922 book, most certainly does make that connection.

That not all the papers between the Maunders’ & Eddy’s use the term “Maunder Minimum” doesn’t mean that they don’t connect periods of low SSN with cooler climate, more clouds, more wind & other climatic parameters, because indeed they do.

Climastrology makes for strange bedfellows. You’re truly sleeping with the enemy by citing that very model of post-modern Mann-made global warming garbage.

Pamela Gray says:
June 24, 2014 at 6:21 pm

All I saw in your links was a claim that there should have been an affect on summer temperatures from sulfates, not any evidence that there actually was. Your links, as did all the others, also pointed out that the cooling effect of aerosols doesn’t scale linearly, just as my sources noted.

Sorry, but your pet hypothesis is busted. As Willis correctly points out, it crashes on the rocks of reality, ie reefs of facts:

“ISO was founded 1947, WMO in 1950. So obviously Pouillet wasn’t using today’s calibration standards. Intercalibration with others at that time wouldn’t help much if as a class they read lower than today’s precision instruments.”

Modern pyrheliometers are calibrated to attain > 99% accuracy. Even if Pouillet’s measurement error is 5% that would still give lower solar constant enough to cool the planet by 3.5 C. How do you know his error is > 5%?

Around 200 BC, using sticks, Eratosthenes measured the circumference of the earth with less than 2% error. His sticks were not calibrated by ISO and WMO. (To answer critics, Eratosthenes used the Egyptian stade = 157.5 m since he was in Egypt and obtained data from Egyptian surveyors)

Is it hard to believe the sun was less active in the LIA? Sunspot records show it. 1600-1850 sunspots < 50 most of the time. 1950-2000 sunspots average 75.

Dr. Strangelove says:
June 24, 2014 at 8:09 pmIs it hard to believe the sun was less active in the LIA? Sunspot records show it. 1600-1850 sunspots < 50 most of the time. 1950-2000 sunspots average 75.
The revised SSN series has average SSN 1749-1799 as 64, 1800-1899 as 51, and 1900-2014 as 62. Values before 1749 were lower, but also very uncertain. The number of sunspot groups was average 1749-1799 as 5.3, 1800-1899 as 3.9, and 1900-2014 as 4.7. Hardly any systematic long-term increase.

Willis Eschenbach: The accuracy of the ‘hockey stick’ type reconstruction shown above was essentially confirmed by The National Academies of America in 2006 with their paper ‘Surface temperature reconstructions for the past 2000 years.

So that’s what you mean. I think the reference is to the use of the most important principle components of multiple time series, followed by an attempt to derive a linear relationship between temperature and the principle components by some form of linear regression. MBH98 was the first such effort in climatology, and the the method has been widely applied since then. MBH98 contained errors, which were pointed out by McIntyre and McKittrick, whose work was in turn shown to have some errors (though more minor.) Mann has continued to publish, better work, the best of which does not support the MBH98 and elaborated “Hockey Stick” (though he seems to claim it still does), which “hockey Stick” itself was disconfirmed by others and isn’t any longer accepted by the UNIPCC or anybody else who pays attention to details.

In 2007, the NAS was not quite ready to commit to the idea that Mann may have been worse than sloppy, as I was not quite ready at that time. I think careful reading of Mann’s work, McIntyre’s careful critiques, the the full interchange published in Annals of Applied Statistics, and other work undermines belief in Mann’s honesty. But I still think that tonyb’s (and others’) strategy of debating Mann head on is defensible.

thank you for your later reference to my patience. It is a strategy. I am able to take out my frustrations in chopping trees, hefting heavy stones, and digging and hauling dirt in the carrying out of “landscaping” projects. In person I am actually crabby.

Since you’ve never done a scrap of research for me, I have no clue what you are babbling about.

I said it was easy to find papers from before the ’60s on the connection between sunspots & climate & weather, because it is. The one I cited, Huntingdon’s 1922 book, most certainly does make that connection.

No, you didn’t say anything about “the connections between sunspots & climate & weather”. That’s provably untrue. You can’t even be bothered to quote yourself. What you actually said was:

It’s easy to find material on the Maunder from the ’60s & first half of the ’70s. You have but to look:

Which made sense, because if you follow your own comments back, the trigger for our interchange was my challenge (emphasis mine):

While you and others CLAIM that it is false, to DEMONSTRATE that it is false you’d have to show significant interest prior to 1976 in the subject of temperatures during the Maunder. Eddy could only find a few papers that discussed temperatures during the Maunder prior to his study. Not only that, but the earliest reference which Eddy found was dated 1961 …

Citing my challenge, you claimed it was “easy” to do that … but I fear that to date you haven’t been able to even begin to do it.

Since Huntingdon’s book doesn’t mention the Maunder, it’s meaningless in this question. And since you still haven’t come up with one new citation that discusses the connection between the Maunder and temperature, to date you are losing, and losing badly. You claimed it was easy to show “significant interest”, and to date you don’t have one single example.

Dr. Strangelove says:
June 24, 2014 at 7:23 pm
———————————-
I have no association with any “slayers”. All my work is my own.

Any claim that I am associated with “slayers” is a lie. Care to retract your lie?

Further, none of my experiments challenge existing laws of radiative physics. Any claim that they do would also be a lie.

The experiment I presented on this thread concerning selective surfaces was a simple demonstration of basic engineering covered by researchers at Texas A&M in 1965. Nothing special, nothing new. It’s just that climastrologists are too stupid to qualify for engineering. If I said “C” grade students, that’s not “C” for credit average, that’s “C” for conceded pass.

Now what did the researchers in 1965 work out? Evaporation constrained solar ponds –
– work best when layer 3 rather than layer 2 is black, even though more SW is absorbed when layer 2 is matt black. Think your standard S-B scribblings can answer that? Think again.

And think again before you lie and call me a “slayer”.

PS. Remember Dr. Spencer’s site? The Internet does. Forever. Not the first time you have lied outright now is it?

… as does the legend on the graph as well as the linked provided under “…that is detailed here:”

Wrong. There is no notation of the latitude range on the graph. You have two legends saying “TOA reflected tropical SW anomaly” and then how the data were mangled. They don’t match, I provided more info.

My graph shows a “bump” because it’s temperature of the lower stratosphere ( TLS ) . Today you have learnt that volcanoes have the opposite effect on the stratosphere. They then take what looks like a definitive step down. That part is covered in more detail here:

What I learned is you have said of it:

Further evidence of the long term warming effect of vulcanism.

You present evidence of cooling, and say it is warming. But there was no evidence of long term warming.

So are you claiming there will be tropospheric warming with stratospheric cooling? We were told that was evidence of (C)AGW.

Of course, as shown in the Eschenbach 2012 piece Volcanic Disruptions, the apparent atmospheric transmission of direct solar radiation (aka transmittance forcing change) is disrupted far more for far longer than the surface temperatures are perturbed, if they notice eruptions at all.

Therefore what affects the higher parts of the atmosphere may not affect the surface and lower troposphere temperatures. Your evidence of stratospheric cooling is evidence of stratospheric cooling, nothing more.

And one of the main reasons for that recovery is what I showed here. Changes in the transparency of the stratosphere leading to an additional 2 W/m2 making it into the tropical lower climate system.

There is a curious artifact of your 8 month smoothing, the flux anomaly starts curving upwards many months before the actual June 15, 1991 eruption. From what was the prevailing trend at 1990 before the up-curving to the end of the smoothed line about 1997.4, there might be a 1.5 difference.

If volcanoes cause a _temporary_ cooling of the extra-tropical regions, someone ought to be explaining why it warms up again. The orthodoxy pretend this is due to AGW. What I have shown here is that it is far too closely linked to aerosol density and the timing of volcanic eruptions.

If someone swats a tree branch aside, there needs to be an explanation why it springs back to where it was? The temperatures are naturally resilient, Eschenbach’s Thunderstorm Thermostat hypothesis allows for quick recovery and the heat from the tropics is transported to the higher latitudes. Plus there is the natural buffering effect of the oceans.

Where’s the volcano? The oceans didn’t notice, so the global temperatures hardly noticed.

Had you bothered to follow the link below the graph you would have got the full story, in all it’s technical detail:
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=884

So I have provided evidence if you could be bothered to read it before sounding off.

Which is something I’ve avoided mentioning until now. You point to that post here as some great explanatory thing where all these tidbits are revealed. But your actual post that you gave as “further evidence” says:

Since major eruptions have a notable effect on the annual variations an adaptive method is applied that is detailed here:

http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=884

Since I just came for the “further evidence” and not to examine your “adaptive method”, I had no reason to click on it.

So you have been berating me for not looking at info that you didn’t label as pertinent for your “further evidence”.

And that’s also a shoddy practice. You said it was further evidence, which it wasn’t. But now you’re saying it needs the other post. After peeking at your long-winded other post, you basically said “The evidence is this graph”, and when I go there you’re saying “The evidence is this graph and this book, happy reading”.

Do you know what happens to retailers who advertise this device is what you need, and when you get in the store they tell you it’s what you need IF you add in all these other devices and services?

Leif I’ll take your last comment (7:04pm) as the compliment which I’m sure you intended.
However it does show a basic difference in approach. Your reference to poor data related to the base of the core which you then extrapolated to the top for no necessary reason. My comment referred to the top of the Dye 3 ice core BE data which looks good to me.
Climate science is an historical science at its core. Look at the Geological Time Scale- It is cobbled together from looking at many different kinds of data. time series from all over the world with all sorts of gaps ,deficiencies, differences in data quality etc. You have to judge which bits fit together to make a coherent whole- which bits make sense in the context of the whole. Many observations can be disregarded as not being particularly useful for one reason or another, others act as ” Golden Spikes” to pin down some events in time and space.
You have a tendency to throw out the baby with the bathwater- you need to do some constructive rather than destructive cherry picking and see where it takes you. For example the same Fig 1
shows very nicely the Maunder and Dalton temperature minimums in the 10 Be solar related data.of the NGRIP ice core. After correlating all sorts of wiggles for 40 years I have no problem using the NGRIP for the Maunder and Dalton and the DYE 3 for the 20th century. It is the sort of thing you have to do when dealing with a complex system with multiple variables. Those whose training is in physics and maths are obviously not going to feel comfortable with this sort of approach and prefer to beat their heads against the wall of computer modelling the system.
At the same time I acknowledge the value of your detailed critical analysis of the reliability of the sunspot and magnetic data – it must be considered when deciding which cherries to pick even if one in the end chooses not to pick some of the ones you like and to pick some of those you don’t like.

Do you really believe the Maunder and Dalton Minima occurred during the LIA is purely coincidental? The sun was unusually weak and the climate was unusually cold but they have no relation, just coincidence.

“one needs to go back over 8,000 years in order to find a time when the Sun was, on average, as active as in the last 60 years.” (Solanki et al)

Dr Norman Page says:
June 24, 2014 at 10:10 pmAfter correlating all sorts of wiggles for 40 years I have no problem using the NGRIP for the Maunder and Dalton and the DYE 3 for the 20th century. It is the sort of thing you have to do when dealing with ,,,
Fig. 3 of Berggren shows how poor Dye-3 is for the 20th century before ~1950, so you should have a problem. The whole level of Dye-3 before 1950 is wrong [too high]. The NGRIP data in Fig. 3 shows what the level should be. How do I know this? Because the cosmic ray flux can be derived from the strength of the solar wind magnetic field which we now know rather accurately back to 1845. So, you are welcome to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.
One should not pick cherries according to what one likes, but according to the reliability of the data.

Dr. Strangelove says:
June 24, 2014 at 10:21 pmDo you really believe the Maunder and Dalton Minima occurred during the LIA is purely coincidental? The sun was unusually weak and the climate was unusually cold but they have no relation, just coincidence.
That is right.

“one needs to go back over 8,000 years in order to find a time when the Sun was, on average, as active as in the last 60 years.” (Solanki et al)
Is not true, as I have shown several times, but perhaps you were not paying attention.

You will have to say ‘centuries’ as solar activity was as high in the 18th century as in the middle 20th.

The period from 1750-1800, where Leif has the revised SSN averaging about 64, was a period of substantial global warming (I’m looking at Moberg 2005), not far short of the substantial warming since 1950 (if we can believe HadCRUT, GISS etcetera), during which time solar activity was a bit higher still (according to Steinhilber 2009).

I don’t see how Leif is able to construe the 18th century coincidence between rising global temperatures and high solar activity (not exceptional perhaps, but high) as evidence against high solar activity as a major driver of global temperature. Pretty bizarre Leif.

Modern pyrheliometers are calibrated to attain > 99% accuracy. Even if Pouillet’s measurement error is 5% that would still give lower solar constant enough to cool the planet by 3.5 C. How do you know his error is > 5%?

How do you know that would cool the planet that much? Between Eschenbach’s Thunderstorm Thermostat hypothesis and numerous other proposed regulating mechanisms, giving a temperature drop by crunching TSI through a simple equation seems foolish. The Earth is not a block of aluminum on a digitally-controlled hot plate.

Around 200 BC, using sticks, Eratosthenes measured the circumference of the earth with less than 2% error. His sticks were not calibrated by ISO and WMO. (To answer critics, Eratosthenes used the Egyptian stade = 157.5 m since he was in Egypt and obtained data from Egyptian surveyors)

First off, don’t you think the Egyptians had standards? They built pyramids and cities and monuments, so I’m sure they likely figured out the importance of reference standards.

…
The stadion, Latinized as stadium and anglicized as stade, is an ancient Greek unit of length. According to Herodotus, one stade is equal to 600 feet. However, there were several different lengths of “feet”, depending on the country of origin.
…
Phoenician-Egyptian 209 m
…Conjectural origin of the standard Attic or Alexandrian stadion
Ignoring various conspicuous factors that experienced specialists are closely familiar with, special pleader speculations may never stop defending Eratosthenes’s overlarge circumference of the earth by positing for him a shorter stadion than the Attic. But conventional[3] opinion has mostly accepted that Alexandrian science used a fixed constant Attic 185 meter stadion — though its origin has long remained unknown. (…)

The accuracy of the ‘hockey stick’ type reconstruction shown above was essentially confirmed by The National Academies of America in 2006 with their paper ‘Surface temperature reconstructions for the past 2000 years.

So that’s what you mean. I think the reference is to the use of the most important principle components of multiple time series, followed by an attempt to derive a linear relationship between temperature and the principle components by some form of linear regression.

Nope. The reference is to the accuracy of such reconstructions, not the use of principal component analysis. If you look at say half a dozen of these reconstructions, they are all over the place, floor to ceiling … how can anyone seriously claim that that is “accurate”? That’s a joke. If they were accurate they would all get approximately the same answer. They don’t, therefore they are not accurate.

MBH98 was the first such effort in climatology, and the the method has been widely applied since then.

The methodology in MBH98 was an incorrect uncentered PCA analysis, so no, thankfully that method has never been tried again. And generally, they try out some new whiz-bang method with a new acronym with each new incarnation. I think the latest was “ECS”.

MBH98 contained errors, which were pointed out by McIntyre and McKittrick, whose work was in turn shown to have some errors (though more minor.) Mann has continued to publish, better work, the best of which does not support the MBH98 and elaborated “Hockey Stick” (though he seems to claim it still does), which “hockey Stick” itself was disconfirmed by others and isn’t any longer accepted by the UNIPCC or anybody else who pays attention to details.

Mann’s later work is as shabby as MBH98. For heaven’s sake, he used the Tiljander data upside down, then defended using it upside down, then used it again in Mann2008 … and again upside down. Better work? Don’t make me laugh.

Please, please, Matthew, do your homework. Go to climateaudit and read about the successive unsuccessful attempts to rehabilitate the hockeystick. Read about his sleight of hand regarding withholding proxies to “test” his method. Read about the “CENSORED TO 1400” folder. You’re just making things up if you claim Mann did “better work”, you have no evidence of that at all.

Finally, the issue is not whether these days they use PCA or some other method. They are always inventing a new one. The problem is use of “data snooping” and post-hoc proxy selection, along with a method which actively mines for hockeysticks, combined with an addiction to discredited bristlecone pine proxies and careful elimination of any troublesome proxies. You truly are way out of your depth, my friend. The multi-proxy analyses all have very serious problems, and claiming that they have been shown to be “essentially confirmed” is simply not true.

In 2007, the NAS was not quite ready to commit to the idea that Mann may have been worse than sloppy, as I was not quite ready at that time. I think careful reading of Mann’s work, McIntyre’s careful critiques, the the full interchange published in Annals of Applied Statistics, and other work undermines belief in Mann’s honesty.

There’s nothing there to “debate”, Matthew, and claiming that there is gives him false prominence.

But I still think that tonyb’s (and others’) strategy of debating Mann head on is defensible.

He is convicted by his own words of advising his co-conspirators to destroy emails sought under a FOI request, and undoubtedly destroyed his own copies of those emails … and you sit here waffling about his honesty? Truly, neither you nor Tony appear to have any idea of the kind of man you are dealing with and want to “meet head on”.

Perhaps you’ve never heard that “any publicity is good publicity”, and I assure you, Tony saying on Judith Curry’s blog that Mann’s methods have been shown by the NAS to be “essentially correct” is publicity that Mann would gladly pay for. That was a huge win for him.

As a result, you and Tony are actively facilitating Mann’s ability to spread further falsehoods. Color me disappointed. Tony is holding hands with a crook, claiming said miscreant is essentially correct, and meanwhile not pointing out his math mistakes, nor his use of upside-down proxies, nor even his bogus stripbark pines, much less a single word about his illegal actions … and you see no problems with that, you’re right there symbolically holding hands with the both of them and busting me for objecting to this charade.

Your choice, but I wouldn’t … like the song says:

“As near as I remember, ’twas a year ago November,
I was walking down the street in tipsy pride.
No one I was disturbin’ as I lay down by the curbin’ …
And a pig came up and lay down at my side.

As I lay there in the gutter, thinking thoughts I cannot utter,
A lady passing by was heard to say
‘You can tell a man who boozes by the company he chooses!’ …
And the pig got up and slowly walked away.”

Where I live in central southern England UK, snow is a rarity, an occaisional light dusting but usually gone that afternoon. But in the winter of 2009, the second year without sunspots, (not sure I remember the exact year) we had 20cm of snow and I couldn’t get to work for a week. But for me the real interest that year were the BBC weather reports where we were getting record low and near record low temperatures here and there in the UK.

OK in almost any year there are record lows or highs from time to time, but it seemed to me that we were getting more near record lows then. Probably nothing that would stand out in the statistics, but I thought then that it was interesting and so I am looking forward to seeing what effect the putative lack of sunspots might have in about 2022 or so.

I think that the one year without sunspots every 11 years or so has no discernable impact, but I suspect that several years on the trot without sunspots will have an impact, and that we saw a hint of that in 2009. Bring on 2022. Mechanism, no idea.

I think that we should be open to any and all ideas, even extreme and apparently crazy stuff if only to re-affirm dismisal of those theories. There is no harm in re-examining received wisdom. If we are open minded enough an unexpected correlation may be found, then eventually after research somone may find a plausible, perhaps unexpected mechanism, and science and understanding moves forward.

kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
June 24, 2014 at 11:58 pm
——————————————————–
Southern sea ice extent reached 1.794 mil on today,s Cryosphere page. That is the second highest anomaly in the 35 year satellite record. This should be another record setting year down there for the sea ice.

“The Earth is not a block of aluminum on a digitally-controlled hot plate.”

Of course but it still obeys S-B law of radiation. It would be foolish to think otherwise. Or you don’t believe the greenhouse effect?

“don’t you think the Egyptians had standards?”

Yes they do but it’s not certified by ISO and WMO. If Eratosthenes had a bigger error it’s because his Egyptian sources got the distance between Alexandria and Syene wrong. But his sticks were pretty accurate though also not certified by ISO and WMO.

Sounds interesting, however there are a number of studies based on pollen as well as diatoms that correlate long term changes solar activity with the MWP and LIA, you guys have your work cut out for you if intend to prove that each solar mimum and maximum returns TSI and solar magnetic field strengths roughly to the same value over many decades.

Of course but it still obeys S-B law of radiation. It would be foolish to think otherwise. Or you don’t believe the greenhouse effect?

Do you? From out in space where observers of Earth will see energy in = energy out, Stefan-Boltzmann describes Earth. You can calculate the effective temperature of the planet once you account for the actual absorption.

But here underneath the greenhouse gases, our “global average” temperature is controlled by the rate of heat retention. So it is foolish to think S-B will give surface temperatures.

Don’t forget all the feedbacks like clouds, etc, that affect absorption and retention. We can maintain the current temperatures with a bit more or a bit less TSI.

Yes they do but it’s not certified by ISO and WMO.

Then who maintained the standards of the time? Wasn’t there an authority establishing the accuracy of measurements, at least for commerce?

But Pouillet was a pioneer. What authority back then supplied standards and calibration procedures for pyrheliometers? Pouillet had made his own device.

If Eratosthenes had a bigger error it’s because his Egyptian sources got the distance between Alexandria and Syene wrong.

His knowledge of the size of Egypt after many generations of surveying trips for the Pharaonic bookkeepers gave a distance between the cities of 5,000 stadia. This distance was corroborated by inquiring about the time that it took to travel from Syene to Alexandria by camel. He rounded the result to a final value of 700 stadia per degree, which implies a circumference of 252,000 stadia. Some claim Erathostenes used the Egyptian stade of 157.5 meters, which would imply a circumference of 39,690 km, an error of 1.6%, but the 185 meter Attic stade is the most commonly accepted value for the length of the stade used by Eratosthenes in his measurements of the Earth, [18] which imply a circumference of 46,620 km, an error of 16.3%. It is unlikely, however, that Eratosthenes got an accurate measurement of the circumference of the Earth, given three errors in the assumptions he made:[17]

1. That Alexandria and Syene lie on the same meridian.
2. That the distance between Alexandria and Syene is 5000 stades.
3. That the Earth is a sphere.

If we repeat Eratosthenes’ calculation with more accurate data, the result is 40,074 km, which is 66 km different (0.16%) from the currently accepted circumference of the Earth.[17]

So there are two other reasons he got a bigger error. And it was really 16.3%.

Although I think I remember a PBS show, Nova or Scientific American Frontiers or something, that gave the small error. They might have then explained how global warming had not yet significantly increased global circumference due to thermal expansion, or not, it’s been awhile.

The Bunyip
Friday 28 November 1902
Sir, In my letter to you which appeared in your issue […] you have reversed my remark with reference to sun spots. What I said was that a minimum of sunspots was accompanied with wet, and a maximum with dry seasons.
-J. Harcourt Giddons, M.SA. London, Astronomical Meteorologist

Clarence and Richmond Examiner – Saturday 2 January 1904
Recent researches into tho nature and periodicity of sun-spots throw a good deal of light–if the paradox may pass–upon the recurring dark places of the solar photo-sphere. Those who believe that there is a direct connection between sun-spots and the rainfall will no doubt be able to extract some support for that view from an article by the Rev. Father Cortie, in the November number of the “Ninteenth Century.” This observer, with the cautious reserve of a true scientist, refuses to commit himself definitely.

Examiner
Tuesday 6 September 1904
Knowledge of sun spots is distinctly limited, and Sir Norman Lockyer contended that the discovery and understanding of these phenomena will prove one of the most beneficial additions to the world in general. He advances the theory that such knowledge may enable astronomers to convert the sun into an agent to enable us to cope with droughts and famines, and that the spots on the sun may render it possible to predict with practical certainty the coming of famine and the exact part of the world where it will take place.

Western Champion
Friday 12 April 1912
Dealing with the question “Has a spot on the sun anything to do with the price of wheat” … “The whole question..is still in its primitive stages”

Bendigo Advertiser
Saturday 16 March 1918
There is a correspondence between sun spots and the weather. The more sun spots there are the more cyclones in the Indian Ocean, and the more West Indian hurricanes. The years when the sun spots are at their maximum are apt to be cold and wet.

The Australasian
Saturday 6 January 1923
The Commonwealth meteorologist (Sir. Hunt) states that there is nothing in sun spots to suggest any effect on the weather.

The Northern Miner
Wednesday 18 August 1926
“Terrestrial weather is another phenomena which may be connected to solar activity, and this is also a subject of study in many laboratories and observatories.”

Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate
Wednesday 7 September 1927
The extraordinary storms which the Earth has been going through, first in one phone and then another, are attributed by many to the usually large sun spots observed at the leading observatories.

Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate
Tuesday 3 December 1935
The effect of sun spots on terrestrial conditions is an important branch of Solar research work. Their presence has been identified with magnetic storms, terrestrial aurorae, etc., and increasing evidence tends to show that they have an effect on plant growth.[!]

The Argus
Saturday 11 October 1952
LOS ANGELES: Gigantic explosions on the sun set off a chain reaction which resulted in tropical rainstorms along the Pacific equator, a scientist reported yesterday. The first substantial evidence to link solar disturbances and formation of storms within the earth’s atmosphere was revealed by Dr. Clarence Palmer, of the University of California Institute of Geophysics. Bright spots on the sun, Dr. Palmer said, were followed by a consistent meteorological pattern along the Pacific equator.

BBC
Friday, February 13, 1998
Scientists blame sun for global warming — Climate changes such as global warming may be due to changes in the sun rather than to the release of greenhouse gases on Earth. Climatologists and astronomers speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Philadelphia say the present warming may be unusual – but a mini ice age could soon follow.
* * * * * * * *

I had not intended to return to this thread as the argument you seem to have with me makes unseemly reading and detracts from your own article. However your very long reply to Matthew has caused me to return. Especially this;

‘Tony is holding hands with a crook, claiming said miscreant is essentially correct, and meanwhile not pointing out his math mistakes, nor his use of upside-down proxies, nor even his bogus stripbark pines, much less a single word about his illegal actions … and you see no problems with that, you’re right there symbolically holding hands with the both of them and busting me for objecting to this charade.’

As you have said, there have been myriad articles that point out in explicit terms the shortcomings (as sceptics see them) of the HS. However they have had little impact outside the febrile area of a few blogs and the hockey stick and its many derivatives still influence main stream thinking whether we like it or not.

What on earth do you think would be gained by yet another bitter attack on this icon? For this is surely what you are suggesting I should have done when you complain that I have not explicitly referenced these flaws for the umpteenth time? Don’t you think there might be other ways to undermine the ‘science’ than being perpetually angry about something that is securely embedded in the minds of those taking decisions relating to the climate?

Willis, we all have different ways of writing. You tend to be outspoken whilst I tend to be understated. The reason for this no doubt lies in our backgrounds and nationalities and the audiences we address. I am trying to reach both warmists and the uncommitted and I can’t do this if from the outset I put forward arguments they will immediately dismiss and at that point stop reading.

In ‘The Long slow thaw?’ I reconstructed CET from 1659 to 1538 and thought it would be useful to run it alongside two more famous reconstructions, that of Dr Mann and Hubert Lamb as that was likely to retain the interest of readers on all sides of the debate. Mann and Lambs results differ substantially as I showed in various graphs. Throughout the article I make numerous understated sceptical references as to the accuracy of the Hockey stick. Perhaps you missed them? Here are just a few examples;

‘Mann’s research was thorough and interesting, and like Manley’s work with CET, and Hansen’s with global temperature, was a considerable feat of research and re-interpretation of existing knowledge, which until then had accepted considerable variability, with previous episodes of warming exceeding those in the modern era.’

‘….coupled with a lesser impact of the ‘Little Ice Age’ than had previously been accepted.’

‘An alternative explanation is that the reconstructions and instrumental global data sets in fig 15a together with those city ones mentioned in (37) do in fact accurately represent the prevailing climates of the time, and therefore it is ‘the hockey stick’ that is not a reliable representation.’

‘Coupled with the long lived CET instrumental records, this appears to show that if the Mann reconstruction is correct, the British climate has at times varied substantially from that of the remainder of the Northern Hemisphere for 400 years or so.’

‘ So we have two competing climate history stories-one developed over a lifetime of academic research mostly before the computer era, and the other derived from a scientist using modern statistical techniques and the extensive use of novel proxies interpreted in a highly sophisticated manner using computers.’

Now it is unkindly said that the Americans don’t do irony, but does any of that sound as if I am supporting Dr Mann?

Like it or not the hockey stick remains influential to this day and to believe it has been discredited is surely wishful thinking. So, you are working on the basis that no one believes it whilst I work on the basis that it still represents mainstream thinking that affects govt and institutional thinking, albeit things have moved on with other reconstructions.

I choose to try to point out that natural variability is much greater than is currently believed and thereby try to undermine the results of the HS. To this end I research and publish material that relates to this considerable natural variability. I think this is more effective than producing yet another angry condemnation that no one in the wider and influential world will take any notice of.

That my sympathies lie with the natural variation depicted by Lamb rather than the ‘highly sophisticated’ (irony, Willis) computer rendition of Mann can be seen in the conclusions to the article under section 7 of which I have quoted only a small part.

— —-

The long Slow Thaw-Section 7 conclusion;

4) The nature of the proxies used in MBH98 and 99 have inherent problems and have proved very controversial. Tree rings have an inability to adequately represent the conditions of the entire year, amongst other difficulties, whilst SST’s have their own considerable shortcomings. Mixing proxies also causes their own problems. Taken in total, the data used in such studies is unlikely to accurately represent the climates prevailing at the time back to 1400AD and 1000AD. Carrying out complex statistical analysis on questionable data does not render the initial data any more meaningful as a scientific measure. Paleo reconstructions as a whole should be treated with caution when it relates to precise representations of temperature.

5) Lamb gathered together a variety of forms of evidence in his reconstruction. The schematic of composite graphs seen in figure 16 and 17 -when compared to the reconstruction to 1538- seems to confirm with other research that Lamb’s view of climate history was broadly correct. The main caveats we would place is that our own 1538 reconstruction seems to indicate slightly warmer humps around 1550 and 1630 than Lamb notes. This needs to be checked as it was unexpected

6) The hockey stick remains a potent icon to this day. However the gradual decline in temperatures over the centuries that it depicts cannot be detected, nor the lack of variability of the climate over the same time scales. The sharp uptick in temperatures from the start of the 20th Century is a likely artefact of computer modelling through over complex statistical interpretation of inadequate proxies. Modern warming needs to be put into its historic context with the patterns of considerable natural climatic variability that can be observed from the past.

——- ——– ——-

Willis, I really do not intend to return after this time as this extended debate serves no purpose. I take the view that Mannian thinking is alive and well, you seem to believe its many problems have been fully exposed.

However, the continued advance of policies designed to prevent apparently catastrophic warming continues, mitigated only by financial constraints, surely suggests that the belief in the what the hockey stick appears to be telling us, albeit in its modified forms, still remains main stream thinking and that sceptical critiques have had little mainstream impact.

As I have said before, we each plough our own furrows in our different ways but ultimately we are heading in the same direction.

@ Isvalgaard, you are the only one among the discussants who saw something interesting in my discussion and it is not the first time. So thank you for your attention and realize that your “sensors” closer to natural laws. You advise me to offer my proof this journal WUWT. What would I benefit from it had to announce something big (if true), the list where you pay almost no attention to innovations in science and where the majority of speakers refute the evidence of other, indicating some unproven works and thoughts of some third party (say scientists ). To test my ideas is essential organizations like NASA with the help of the U.S. government. We are talking about programs that contain memory in terabytes.
We talk about the sunspot cycle of about 11 years on average. Imagine those 11 cycles (11.2×11 = 123 years). The figure 123 is a cycle of a butterfly diagram of these spots. There are 4 cycles of 11.2x and many others. in which one can see images of the entire solar system and the interrelationships that cause any changes in the sun. Sunspots are only indicators of something powerful consequences are climate change on all planets. I will try to analyze and Maunder minimum, and other distinctive features such as on and see cause and a similar occurrence in the future. You should not expect, never to be repeated something equivalent. Everything happens for a variety of intensities and at different intervals, but need to convert to the program. It can only be said institutions, if they have any interest. So far, it did not show.

Willis: Man(n) is a vile deceitful creature, contaminating science, and his Hokey Stick is a pusillanimous globule of virulent corruption that is unfit for all but incineration as contagious toxic waste before it destroys more innocent lives!

Tonyb: Yeah, I agree it’s terrible, but a lot of people think it’s valuable so let’s see what we can get for it!

Alec Rawls says:
June 24, 2014 at 10:44 pmI don’t see how Leif is able to construe the 18th century coincidence between rising global temperatures and high solar activity (not exceptional perhaps, but high) as evidence against high solar activity as a major driver of global temperature.
It is quite simple: temperature the last 300 years has been increasing while solar activity has not.

Dr. Strangelove says:
June 24, 2014 at 11:35 pmI see you disagree with Solanki et al but your paper is just a proposal to research. Where is the output of the research team?
In press. Coming soon.

LT says:
June 25, 2014 at 1:58 amyou guys have your work cut out for you if intend to prove that each solar mimum and maximum returns TSI and solar magnetic field strengths roughly to the same value over many decades.
This might help: http://www.leif.org/EOS/2011GL046658.pdf
One could turn the problem around: why would there the solar minimum values vary when there is no activity?

Nikola Milovic says:
June 25, 2014 at 5:00 amYou advise me to offer my proof this journal WUWT. What would I benefit from it had to announce something big (if true)
Just writing it up in a presentable form will benefit you. In addition, the many eyes at WUWT will give you a [free] review.

steven says:
June 25, 2014 at 6:14 amLeif. is your paper going to change the number of spot free days or is the chart on the paper you linked going to be about right?
The number of spot free days will not change. The revised sunspot number of a change of scale.
The preliminary SSN is just ‘about right’.

Leif The Dye 3 data match the neutron count and ionization chamber trends better than the NGRIP. When you derive a data set from observations of a different phenomena you get one more step removed from what you are actually measuring and introduce a whole new set of theoretical assumptions into the data.

Dr Norman Page says:
June 25, 2014 at 6:32 amLeif The Dye 3 data match the neutron count and ionization chamber trends better than the NGRIP.
The ionization chamber data is not calibrated correctly and should not be spliced to the neutron monitor data. Here we have a good example of cherry picking faulty data because it fits your agenda.

Leif I note that you did not question my reference to the Maunder and Dalton minima seen in the NGRIP Be data which you seem to think is good .
It is very clear from Fig 1that the rise in Be 10 from about 1640 to the 1700 peak and the sharp peak at about 1810-15 reflects the decline in solar activity which is the most probable cause of the cooling of the Maunder and Dalton minimums. Can you accept this as a causal connection and if not why not?
For other readers (Willis and Mosher?) Here is the link – see Fig 1.http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009GL03804-Berggren.pdf

You are setting up a tiny bit of a straw man, when you examine the Lamb/Eddy data instead of modern data that fully spans the events and looks beyond temperatures in England, which no doubt has distinct local cyclic behavior superimposed on top of the global trend. If you look at this:

then you see that the series of minima do indeed occur across the LIA. If they are integrated phenomena — as Eddy suggests — it isn’t inconceivable that they have a long term, average, impact. But I do agree that it is difficult to see a smoking gun level of correlation in a sane temporal order. Any effect would definitely be mixed with and modulated by other long time constant climate behavior, e.g. thermohaline turnover, modulation of the decadal oscillations.

I don’t quite despair of finding a simple linear causal driver of climate, but based on the data I’ve seen I do keep reducing the probability of one being discovered. It certainly isn’t CO_2. I think that if one generates a scatter plot of CO_2 concentration vs global average temperature as estimated by proxies over the last half-billion years, there is absolutely no meaningful statistical correlation between the two, out to CO_2 concentrations over 10x the present.

Dr Norman Page says:
June 25, 2014 at 7:29 amLeif I note that you did not question my reference to the Maunder and Dalton minima seen in the NGRIP Be data which you seem to think is good .
That I do not question everything you say or imply does not mean that I agree with your missives. I tend to concentrate on the most egregious errors.

It is very clear from Fig 1 that the rise in Be 10 from about 1640 to the 1700 peak and the sharp peak at about 1810-15 reflects the decline in solar activity which is the most probable cause of the cooling of the Maunder and Dalton minimums. Can you accept this as a causal connection and if not why not?
Those sharp peaks are likely not solar at all. My inclination would be that they are of volcanic origin. Take the peak near 1700 [about in 1705 or so]. We have evidence for widespread solar magnetism just at that time: http://www.leif.org/EOS/Eddy/2007SP_prairie.pdf
“The historical eclipse observations described here seem to require the presence of even the bright network structures, and thus of substantial solar photospheric magnetism during at least the last decade of the Maunder Minimum. Hence, the red-ﬂash observations would argue against a climatologically important decrease in TSI during that period of time”.

This is yet another example of a paper that you omit because it doesn’t fit your agenda.

Your SOP is to make bold claims on the basis of practically no research. I had to show you all the species which you failed to consider in your first paper, on extinctions, then just recently had to show you all the research finding an ~11 year signal in climate data.

While your statistical analysis is usually good, you fail to realize that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, not less than ordinary. Thorough literature searches at a minimum should precede publishing conclusions, not follow it, provided by readers.

milodonharlani says:
June 25, 2014 at 7:41 amextraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence
That the tiny solar variations are the cause of the LIA is an extraordinary claim, so where is the extraordinary evidence for that?

I agree that multivariate factors probably mask whatever primary driver might be operating on the centennial-millennial time scale, if such there be, comparable to insolation as modulated by orbital mechanics for the 10,000 to 100,000 year scale.

I don’t think that extraordinary evidence is yet available, which is not to say that there is none. But there is more than for any other candidate as primary driver, if such a forcing exists.

Nor do I consider solar variations all that tiny, given the pronounced fluctuation in spectral composition of TSI & in magnetic flux. Perhaps oddly, there do seem to be positive feedbacks for relatively small changes in solar parameters, such as albedo, water vapor concentration & atmospheric & ocean current circulation.

But of course I agree with you that the jury is necessarily still out. Unfortunately climate science is no longer climatology, with far too much emphasis on modeling & not enough on gathering & analyzing actual data, ie observations of the climate system.

Beng,
while there is considerable uncertainty regarding TSI, it is fairly safe to say it only varies around 0.1 to 0.2%.
***

Right. 1.5 w/m2 (solar-cycle variance) divided by an average ~1365 w/m2 (TSI) = ~0.1%. But I disagree that there is uncertainty in the sun’s TSI — actually it’s very precise (measured by satellite well away from earth). The uncertainty is how much gets into the earth’s atmospheric/ocean system & how it is absorbed (upper or lower atmosphere, land, ocean).

But that creates a quandary. If someone thinks solar cycles (1.5 w/m2 changes) have significant climate effects, how can they dismiss the 3.7 w/m2 (I’ll accept the IPCC’s number for this argument) for CO2 doubling? As the crazy, grizzled old gold-miner said, “That don’t figure”.

The issue is spectral variance and its effect on energy accumulation in the oceans. Here TSI is not a useful measure as it does not account for depth of energy absorption. For selective surfaces such as our deep transparent oceans, depth of absorption has a significant role in rate of accumulation or discharge. The experiment posted up thread is a clear demonstration of this mechanism.

Not sure which experiment you’re referring to. What you say is correct — energy absorbed below the ocean surface will not show up instantly, but w/some time-delay (and the immediate warming is actually reduced compared to surface-absorbed energy). Bottom-line for me, tho, is watts are watts, and absorption above 50m depth is going to show most of itself in the ocean surface temps in just a few yrs. Volcano Pinatubo blocked solar SW (which some of the visible light & UV gets absorbed below the ocean surface) and its effects were over in a few yrs.

Leif One last go at this one . Do you not agree that the overall rise in 10Be from 1600 -1700
in the NGRIP data reflects a decline in the solar magnetic field strength and an increase in the GCRs entering the atmosphere? Thus introducing the possibility of cooling via some version of the Svensmark hypothesis via clouds,aerosols and changing albedo or optical depth. The effect of TSI is seen on the quite different Milankovic time scales- mainly the eccentricity.

Dr Norman Page says:
June 25, 2014 at 8:17 amLeif One last go at this one . Do you not agree that the overall rise in 10Be from 1600 -1700
in the NGRIP data reflects a decline in the solar magnetic field strength and an increase in the GCRs entering the atmosphere? Thus introducing the possibility of cooling via some version of the Svensmark hypothesis via clouds,aerosols
by 1700 the solar magnetic field was strong enough to produce a chromosphere http://www.leif.org/EOS/Eddy/2007SP_prairie.pdf
““The historical eclipse observations described here seem to require the presence of even the bright network structures, and thus of substantial solar photospheric magnetism during at least the last decade of the Maunder Minimum. ”
And Svensmark’s hypothesis is pretty much dead by now as evidence for it has evaporated.

One problem with you is that you don’t even bother looking at the links I provide.

Dr Norman Page says:
June 25, 2014 at 8:17 amLeif One last go at this one . Do you not agree that the overall rise in 10Be from 1600 -1700
Yet another example of cherry picking [different cherry this time]. Your beloved Dye-3 data shows a flat 10Be flux from 1600 until the end of the century [Figure 1 of Berggren]. Now, the data isn’t all that good, but does illustrate your flitting cherry picking.

The effect of an increased UV component to TSI isn’t limited to air temperature. It has other climatic effects, to include on stratospheric ozone concentration & ocean surface heating & CCN production, although we have disagreed on the extent of its effect on oceanic factors.

The Maunder Minimum papers were informative, thanks very much. As the authors (including Eddy) of the second study observe however, by AD 1706 SSN had already been on the rise for some time & 1715 was the conventional last year of the MM.

milodonharlani says:
June 25, 2014 at 8:45 amThe effect of an increased UV component to TSI isn’t limited to air temperature. It has other climatic effects, to include on stratospheric ozone concentration & ocean surface heating & CCN production, although we have disagreed on the extent of its effect on oceanic factors.
People have modelling all that and the combined result is in the 0.05-0.1 K range.

As the authors (including Eddy) of the second study observe however, by AD 1706 SSN had already been on the rise for some time & 1715 was the conventional last year of the MM.
The big 10Be spike in cosmic rays was in 1705, c.f. Berggren Figure 1.

You are setting up a tiny bit of a straw man, when you examine the Lamb/Eddy data instead of modern data that fully spans the events and looks beyond temperatures in England, which no doubt has distinct local cyclic behavior superimposed on top of the global trend. If you look at this:

2000 year temperature comparison

then you see that the series of minima do indeed occur across the LIA. If they are integrated phenomena — as Eddy suggests — it isn’t inconceivable that they have a long term, average, impact. But I do agree that it is difficult to see a smoking gun level of correlation in a sane temporal order. Any effect would definitely be mixed with and modulated by other long time constant climate behavior, e.g. thermohaline turnover, modulation of the decadal oscillations.

I don’t quite despair of finding a simple linear causal driver of climate, but based on the data I’ve seen I do keep reducing the probability of one being discovered. It certainly isn’t CO_2. I think that if one generates a scatter plot of CO_2 concentration vs global average temperature as estimated by proxies over the last half-billion years, there is absolutely no meaningful statistical correlation between the two, out to CO_2 concentrations over 10x the present.

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Robert, as always, it’s good to hear from you.

Your linked graph shows the results of three “multi-proxy” reconstructions. One is by Michael Mann, and has been shown at ClimateAudit to have a variety of problems. Another is by Moberg, ditto. The third I haven’t heard of, by Huang … hang on … oh, yeah, I remember now, that’s the borehole data that basically disagrees with all of the other proxies. Boreholes, in fact, are ludicrously bad proxies, see my analysis here. They can’t tell a temperature from a hole in the ground, as the saying goes …

In addition the graph includes proxies like the Kilimanjaro ice core data, which is known to be badly contaminated by human activities. We also have the required collection of discredited stripbark pine proxies in the Mann 2004 dataset, plus others equally bad in the Moberg multi-proxy farrago. Plus a number of other proxy datasets, apparently picked at random.

More to the point for this analysis, look at the other graphic on the page:

This shows the longer view of the same proxies used in your graphic … you sure you want to claim that there is a common solar signal in those? As you can see in the other graphic on the page, these proxy datasets differ from each other by up to three degrees … three degrees. I’m sure not seeing any common signal in those at all.

In addition, we have things like the ODP 658 ocean core … they are interpreting it as a temperature proxy, when in the field it is usually used as a precipitation proxy. In addition, it’s also used in the Moberg multi-proxy analysis, so it is over-represented.

Finally, you say:

If you look at this:

2000 year temperature comparison

then you see that the series of minima do indeed occur across the LIA.

I’m sorry, but I see no such thing in that graph. As near as I can tell, there is no common thread at all, and no series of common minima. If you think they are there … then in what years do they occur? Cause I’m not finding them … unless I’m not understanding what you mean by a “series of minima”.

So I have to admit … given these well-known problems with both the individual proxies and the multi-proxy studies, and the near-total lack of agreement between the proxies, and the use of proxies more than once, I’m stunned to see you refer to the average of this pile of random proxy data, including proxies which are known, not suspected but known, to have serious problems, as though it had any meaning at all. It has the famous “upside-down Tiljander” in it, it has the bogus stripbarks, it has the Yamal nonsense, it’s like a rogues gallery of bad proxies … you sure you want to use this as a poster child for solar effects?

Finally, I keep coming up against the lack of the 11-year cycle. We don’t see a significant 11-year cycle in the climate data anywhere. Despite that, when there are two small 11-year cycles in a row (e.g. the “Dalton Minimum”), it’s supposed to cause a detectable depression in the temperature … how does that work?

People on this thread and elsewhere have done a lot of handwaving about “thermal mass” being the reason we can’t find the 11-year cycle in temperature data, but the reality is that we’re not measuring the changing temperature of the entire planet. Instead, we’re measuring changes in the thin top layer of earth, ocean and air. And that top layer swings more than 10°C each and every year … so why on earth would it magically soak up an 11-year cycle? It swings more than a degree on a DAILY cycle, for heavens sake. How does that translate to soaking up an 11-year cycle so thoroughly that no trace of it remains … and yet a much smaller two-cycle reduction in sunspots over a quarter century in the Dalton Minimum is supposed to cause a significant temperature drop?

In conclusion, while I’d love to have an accurate 2000 year dataset to examine for clues to solar cycles as you suggest, the one you have linked to is totally and completely inadequate for such a purpose … too bad, it would have been an interesting study.

Best regards, and thanks as always for your thoughts,

w.

PS—In comparison to the Central England Temperature data, you describe the average of the temperatures which have been calculated (often by arcane and bizarre methods) from the proxies as “modern data”. I have a problem with that, let me try to explain why.

When I was a kid we used to use crickets to tell the temperature by counting their chirps. It is actually not a bad proxy for temperature, much better than stripbark pines.

But I don’t think I’d refer to an estimate of temperatures calculated from an average of cricket chirps and stripbark pines as “modern temperature data” … it may be a modern temperature approximation, or a modern temperature estimate, but “data” to me indicates something a bit more solid than bugs … or stripbark pines, for that matter.

Late Be10 spike may be an annual fluctuation during a decade of decline. The winter of 1709 was also historically cold, for instance, although the 1690s was a colder decade.

Eddy’s paper allows that the flashes observed were from the last decade of the MM. Too bad there aren’t observations from the late 17th century, but even after making proper adjustments, there is an average radionuclide signal associated with the lowest stretch of the MM.